Giovanni Bisignani (born 1946) is an Italian businessman, who was Director General and Chief Executive Officer of the

International Air Transport Association The International Air Transport Association (IATA ) is a trade association of the world's airlines founded in 1945. IATA has been described as a cartel since, in addition to setting technical standards for airlines, IATA also organized tariff ...

from 2002 to 2011.

Education

Bisignani was born in Rome, and received an undergraduate degree from the

Sapienza University of Rome The Sapienza University of Rome ( it, Sapienza – Università di Roma), also called simply Sapienza or the University of Rome, and formally the Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", is a Public university, public research university l ...

. He later studied as graduate student at

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

Career

Bisignani has managerial and business advisory experience, mostly in the

transportation Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline, ...

field, including: *

ENI Eni S.p.A. () is an Italian multinational energy company headquartered in Rome. Considered one of the seven "supermajor" oil companies in the world, it has operations in 69 countries with a market capitalization of US$54.08 billion, as of 11 Ap ...

, a European energy company *

Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale The Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI; English: "Institute for Industrial Reconstruction") was an Italian public holding company established in 1933 by the Fascist regime to rescue, restructure and finance banks and private companies ...

, an Italian industrial group *

Tirrenia di Navigazione Tirrenia is a privately owned Italian shipping company contracted by the Ministry of Transportation to ship items between Italy's mainland and its major islands. It operates a fleet of 23 vessels. History Tirrenia Società Anonima di Navigazio ...

, Italy's largest ferry company (President) *SM Logistics, a group of companies involved in logistics and freight forwarding (CEO) *

Alitalia Alitalia - Società Aerea Italiana Società per azioni, S.p.A., operating as Alitalia (), was an Italian airline which was once the flag carrier and largest airline of Italy. The company had its head office in Fiumicino, Metropolitan City of ...

, Italy's largest

airline An airline is a company that provides civil aviation, air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or Airline alliance, alliances with other airlines for ...

company (CEO and Managing Director) * IATA's Board of Governors (member) *

Association of European Airlines The Association of European Airlines (AEA) was a trade body that brought together 22 major airlines, and was the voice of the European airline industry for over 60 years. It shut down in the end of 2016. AEA worked in partnership with the insti ...

(Chairman) *

Pratt & Whitney Pratt & Whitney is an American aerospace manufacturer with global service operations. It is a subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies. Pratt & Whitney's aircraft engines are widely used in both civil aviation (especially airlines) and military aviat ...

Advisory Board (member) *

National Air Traffic Services NATS Holdings, formerly National Air Traffic Services and commonly referred to as NATS, is the main air navigation service provider in the United Kingdom. It inherited the traditions of UK air traffic control, which (founded over Croydon Airp ...

Advisory Board (member). Bisignani was Director General and CEO of IATA from 2002 to 2011. He was succeeded by Tony Tyler, who joined IATA from Cathay Pacific Airways where he was the CEO.

Publications

After retiring from IATA, Bisignani published ''Shaking the Skies'', a book covering his experience there, focussing on leadership issues, governance and the role of executives in executing a strategic vision for their industry Bisignani, Giovanni. ''Shaking the Skies''. 1st U.K. ed. London: Gold Mercury International and LID Publishing, 2013.

Policies

Since 2002, Bisignani has led a number of initiatives reshaping air transport: *Safety: the IATA Operational Safety Audit is an internationally recognized and accepted evaluation system designed to assess the operational management and control systems of an airline. *Environment: while air transport’s contribution to climate change is limited to 2% of global carbon emissions Bisignani is driving the industry to achieve

carbon neutral Carbon neutrality is a state of net-zero carbon dioxide emissions. This can be achieved by balancing emissions of carbon dioxide with its removal (often through carbon offsetting) or by eliminating emissions from society (the transition to the "p ...

growth by 2020 and to cut aviation’s carbon emissions by half in 2050
www.iata.org/environment
*Simplifying the Business (Stb): Bisignani initiated this program using technology to improve customer convenience and reduce costs in 2004. In 2008, 100% e-ticketing was achieved throughout the industry. The StB project is now targeting industry savings of $17 billion with initiatives ranging from bar coded boarding passes to Fast Travel, Baggage Improvement Program and e-freight.

Personal life

Born in Rome in 1946, Bisignani speaks Italian, English, and Spanish. He is married with one daughter and enjoys golf, tennis and riding. Giovanni Bisignani is the brother of Luigi, Italian businessman and professional journalist which was closely friend of Andreotti, and for 20 years worked for

ANSA Ansa (Latin for "handle") or ANSA may refer to: Organizations * Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata, Italian news agency ** Ansa Mediterranean or ANSAmed, section of the above * Applied Neuroscience Society of Australasia * Association of Norweg ...

, the national centralized Agency Press.

Awards

* Honorary Doctorate from

Cranfield University , mottoeng = After clouds light , established = 1946 - College of Aeronautics 1969 - Cranfield Institute of Technology (gained university status by royal charter) 1993 - Cranfield University (adopted current name) , type = Public research uni ...

, UK in 2008, for his work in the air transport industry. * L. Welch Pogue Award for Lifetime Achievement in Aviation, 2011. * ATW's 2012 Airline Industry - Decade of Excellence Award

References

External links

Giovanni Bisignani - Director General and CEO

Profile
at

SourceWatch The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is a progressive nonprofit watchdog and advocacy organization based in Madison, Wisconsin. CMD publishes ExposedbyCMD.org, SourceWatch.org, and ALECexposed.org. History CMD was founded in 1993 by progr ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bisignani, Giovanni Businesspeople from Rome Living people Harvard Business School alumni 1946 births Sapienza University of Rome alumni Italian expatriates in the United States