Giovanna Melandri

Giovanna Melandri (born 28 January 1962, in New York City) is an Italian-American politician.

An environmental activist since 1982, Giovanna Melandri has been in charge of international relations for Legambiente (1988–1994).

From 1983 to 1987, she was a coordinator for the work group on industrial and technological politics at Montedison.

In that capacity, she attended the Bergen Conference on Sustainable Development in 1990 and was a member of the Italian delegation to the UN Rio summit in 1992.

In 1991, she became a member of the national secretariat for Democrats on the Left.

She was part of the Democratic Party's leadership and executive board from 1992 to 2013.

She was an MP in the Italian Parliament for 18 years (1994–2012), holding the positions of Minister of Culture (1998–2001) and Minister of Youth and Sport (2006–2008).

She was the president of MAXXI, the National Museum of the 21st Century Arts of Rome, until November 1st 2022.

Currently chairwoman of the Human Foundation.

Giovanna Melandri was born in New York City, United States.

She is married, has a daughter, and lives in Rome.

She graduated "cum laude" in political economy at the Sapienza University of Rome.

She has been a deputy in the Italian Parliament since 1994.

From 1994 to 2012 she was a member of the Italian Parliament continuously.

In the XII legislature (1994-1996) she was sitting in the Foreign Affairs Committee and was President of the Committee for Human Rights.

She also supervised works of Childhood Special Committee.

She was an active promoter of the law against sexual violence, and she promoted the first establishment of the parliamentarian intergroup on bioethics, which she coordinated for 2 years.

This group worked on cutting-edge issues (i.e., artificial reproduction, cloning, and biotestament).

In the XIII legislature (1996–1998), before being appointed Minister of Culture, she was a member of the Culture Committee.

She proposed several bills on adoptions, bioethics, assisted reproduction, and the prohibition of extradition to countries that practice the death penalty.

She also proposed bills on publishing, telecommunications, and public broadcasting.

She represented Italy on the parliamentary delegation to the first World Forum on Television, organized by the UN in November 1997.

Between 1998 and 2001, she was minister of culture in the governments of Massimo D'Alema and Giuliano Amato.

From 1998 to 2001, she was appointed Minister of Culture and Sport.

Under her responsibility, Italian cultural policies have received the largest share of public funding ever (more than 3 billion euros) and the first measures of tax incentives for cultural investment.

In those years, many cultural restoration sites were finalized thanks to the introduction of extraordinary sources of funding (i.e., lottery funds), and policies for contemporary art and architecture were initiated.

A national bill establishing MAXXI was passed.

Jointly with the World Bank President James Wolfensohn and the First Lady Hillary Clinton, she promoted, in Florence in 1999, the international forum "Culture Counts: Financing Resources and the Economics of Culture and Sustainable Development."

In October 2000, she was awarded the title "Grant of the Dignity of an Honorary Dame Commander of the Civil Division of the Order of the British Empire" by Queen Elizabeth the Second, and in July 2003, "Officier de la Legion d’Honneur" by the President of the French Republic, Jacques Chirac.

She was invited in 2000 by US President Clinton as the European representative to the White House Conference on Culture and Diplomacy.

On 17 May 2006, she was named minister for youth and sports in the second government of Romano Prodi.

Melandri, who also holds U.S. citizenship, cast a vote for Barack Obama during the 2008 Democrats Abroad primary election.

In November 2012, she was appointed Chairwoman of the MAXXI Foundation, the Italian National Centre for contemporary art, architecture, and design, by the Italian Minister of Culture.

She took over the leadership of the institution, along with its executive functions.

During her presidency, she raised the budget and attendance to over 100% and established international cooperation with major cultural institutions.

Since 2012, she has been the founder and chairwoman of Human Foundation and Giving and Innovating, which promotes a new model of social economy in support of social business and social impact investment in Italy.

Human Foundation also works on training programs for social entrepreneurs and applies social impact evaluation models (i.e., social return on investment, or SROI).

Human Foundation designs new financial tools (i.e., Social Impact Bonds) in cooperation with local and national governments (i.e., the Ministry of Justice).

Melandri is currently president of the Social Impact Agenda for Italy, an association of all stakeholders (social enterprises, banks, banking foundations, and others) involved in the social impact investment market in Italy.

In February 2014, she was awarded "Architect ad honorem" by the Italian National Council of Architects, due to her work for the promotion of architectural quality.