Maria Giacona graduated summa cum laude from the University of Palermo with a degree in Law. She is qualified to practice law and is certified to teach legal subjects at the secondary school level.
She is a Principal Director at Banca d'Italia. After joining the Bank in late 1986, she worked for around 15 years in the Bank's branch network in the area of banking supervision, including serving as an inspector. In 2002, she was made Deputy Director of a branch. In 2003, she was transferred to the Head Office in Rome, in the Banking and Financial Supervision Area, where she headed the Special Situations Division, which was responsible for managing crises involving banks and financial intermediaries. In 2007, she became Head of the Irregularity Analysis Division, which was responsible for imposing sanctions.
In 2009, she moved to the Central Banking, Markets and Payment Systems Area, where she led the Equity and Corporate Risk Division, which handles the Bank's financial investments, including negotiating and entering into contracts with major international operators. As such, she managed the Bank's listed and unlisted equity interests and stock portfolio, monitoring their performance and tracking risk indicators, and establishing the investment criteria, which includes consideration of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors.
In 2020, she returned to handling banking crises, becoming Deputy Head of the Resolution and Crisis Management Unit.
In January 2023, she became Head of the Supervisory Institutional Relations Directorate, which is responsible for dealing with the authorities, licensing new financial intermediaries, imposing administrative sanctions, managing IT and cyber risk, and implementing the EU's Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) covering banking and financial operators.
Among her professional activities, she has been a speaker at conferences on topics such as banking supervision, bankruptcy law reform, financial markets and sustainable investment, the development of Fintech and the application of the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR). She has taught courses and seminars for Banca d'Italia staff and at other institutions and universities.
Ms Giacona has also sat on commissions to interview and select external and internal employment candidates. She served as a Bank representative for the Interbank Deposit Protection Fund and the Guarantee Fund for Cooperative Banks.
She was a member of the Supervisory Board of Sidief SpA, the company that manages the Bank's investment property portfolio.
In international forums, she has been the Bank's principal delegate to the International Capital Markets Association (ICMA) and to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), taking part in their general meetings.
She has also held positions in the European crisis management system, participating as a member of the Single Resolution Board's (SRB) Resolution Committee and the European Banking Authority's (EBA) Standing Committee on Resolution.
She sits on various internal and external committees (the Financial Security Committee, the Banca d'Italia-Consob Joint Strategic Committee and the Subcommittee on Artificial Intelligence) and is in working groups with representatives from the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Economy.
Since 1 September 2026, she has been Deputy Head of the Financial Intelligence Unit for Italy (UIF).
Ms Giacona was born in Palermo. She is married and has a daughter.
