Roberto CANTONE
Ambassador of Italy to Saudi Arabia
Ambassador Roberto Cantone was born in Cesana Torinese (Turin, Italy) in 1959. He is graduated in Political Science at the University of Turin (1985) and he is member of the Italian Foreign Service since 1988. He has begun his career at the Directorate General for Cultural Relations. In 1989 he attended the National School of Administration (ENA) in Paris. His first post overseas was to Algiers in 1991. In 1994 he was transferred to London, as the Consul of Italy. In 1999 he returned to Rome at Crisis Management Unit, having to deal with emergency situations affecting Italian citizens around the world. In 2003 he was appointed as First Counselor in Beirut. From 2007 to 2011 he was Ambassador of Italy in Khartoum, in Sudan. In 2011 he returned to Rome where he served as the Head of the Scientific and Technological Cooperation Unit within Directorate General for Country Promotion where he also covered the function of the Coordinator of the Foreign Ministry Affairs for space topics. From 2016 to 2020 he is Ambassador of Italy to Afghanistan. Since June 2020 Roberto Cantone is Ambassador of Italy to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.