Mario Draghi

Born 3 September 1947, Draghi spent the 1980s as an economist at the World Bank in Washington before returning to Rome in 1991 as director general of the Italian Treasury. A decade later he joined Goldman Sachs, leaving in 2006 to become governor of the Bank of Italy just as the Great Recession hit. He chaired the Financial Stability Board from 2009, then moved to the presidency of the European Central Bank in 2011, arriving as the eurozone teetered. His unconventional bond-buying programs and that single iron-clad vow kept the currency from splintering; Paul Krugman later called him "the greatest central banker of modern times." When his ECB term ended in 2019 he stepped back, but in February 2021 Italy's president pulled him into politics to lead a national unity government through the pandemic. He governed for nineteen months, won high marks, then resigned in July 2022 after coalition partners bolted over energy policy, handing power to Giorgia Meloni that October.