Carlo Magrassi - Deputy Chief, Executive Strategy, European Defence Agency, Brussels

Biography
Carlo Magrassi is presently the Deputy Chief Executive Strategy in the European Defence Agency in Brussels, where he has been already, from 2004 to 2007, the Armaments Director.

He is Major General of the Italian Air Force and enlisted in the Air Force Academy in 1974.  During his early career he undertook operational duties as a fighter pilot in Air Defence Bases and after as Test Pilot in the Italian “Study, Research and Test Centre”.   In these duties he was deeply involved in the R&D and production phases of Eurofighter, EH 101, Tornado and NH 90, and many other projects.
Later, as Aide de Camp of the Italian Defence Secretary General/NAD we was exposed to the full spectrum of the international relations and activities pertaining to the Italian NAD.

Then he moved to the Air Force Staff (as manager of the Plans, Policy and Doctrine area) where he was in charge of conceiving the future operational structure and planning the capabilities of the Air Force to support evolving operational needs.  In this position he was also responsible for the Italian Air Force contribution to the NATO planning process.

Furthermore during this period he was heavily involved in the restructuring of the Italian Joint military structure.   In 1996 he was appointed Commander of the Italian Flight Test Centre.  After this he led the Air Force International Cooperation Branch dealing with MoUs and international co-operations with NATO and non-NATO Countries.

As Deputy Chief of the Defence Armaments Policy Department he was in charge of proposing the policy on armaments acquisition and coordinating the governmental and industrial relations in national and international projects.

In the same period he was also appointed as the Italian Representative to FTPC (Future Tasks & Policy Committee) of the OCCAR and additionally, as member and chairman of the Executive Committee of the LoI, he overviewed all the LoI areas.

General MAGRASSI is a graduate in “Aeronautical Sciences for Security and Defence” and in “Diplomatic and International Sciences”, and he gained a Master of Sciences in “National Security Strategy” at the National War College in Washington.

He is married with Paola and they have one son, Federico.