TBI is very pleased to announce that Matteo Renzi, former Italian prime minister and leader of the Democratic Party (PD), is joining the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) as a Strategic Counsellor.
Working with colleagues and teams across TBI’s portfolio of countries, Mr Renzi will support our work at the highest levels, advising political leaders on their reform programmes. Mr Renzi, the youngest-ever prime minister of Italy, has a record of accomplishment, from the early and comprehensive adoption of digital technology to the introduction of sweeping reforms to public services.
Tony Blair said, “I am delighted to welcome Matteo Renzi to the Institute as a Strategic Counsellor. Matteo will be a valuable addition to our team of leaders who provide high-level strategic advice and insight, helping political leaders worldwide deliver change for their people.”
TBI supports political leaders and governments to build open, inclusive and prosperous societies in a globalised world. We do this by providing expert advice to political leaders worldwide on strategy, policy and delivery, all enabled by technology.
Matteo Renzi served as prime minister of Italy from February 2014 to December 2016.
He led PD from 2013 to 2018, with a brief interruption in 2017. In 2019, he formed his own centrist party, Italia Viva.
He was a member of the Christian-democratic Italian People’s Party from 1996 to 2002, which merged into the centrist party The Daisy, which in turn merged into PD in 2007, the main party of the centre left.
In 2009, while a member of PD, Mr Renzi became mayor of Florence. His policies included installing 500 WiFi access points, halving the number of city councillors and cutting public-sector excess spending, reducing kindergarten waiting lists by 90 per cent, and investing in school buildings and welfare.
Matteo Renzi has long been a proponent of pursuing digitalisation as a central part of domestic reform in Italy. During his time as prime minister, the introduction of digital ID into key public services was viewed by Renzi as enabling the creation of “a faster, more agile, less bureaucratic Italy.”
In 2014, Mr Renzi introduced the Reform of the Public Administration, or “Madia Reform”, as an extensive set of measures to modernise public administration in Italy. The reforms included a comprehensive digitalisation and e-government component, in which digital ID was a central pillar.
TBI’s Strategic Counsellors now include Matteo Renzi, Sanna Marin, former Finnish prime minister, General Sir Nick Carter, former chief of defence staff in the UK, and Patrick Vallance, former UK-government chief scientific adviser.
TBI’s Strategic Counsellors provide critical advice, drawn from experience, to political leaders facing an array of challenges in implementing sweeping reforms and important nation-building projects.