Born in Milan on the 20th May 1964. She is an Italian journalist, writer and anchor.
She has been President of Rai – Radiotelevisione Italiana – from August 2015 until August 2018 and CEO of Rai Com SpA commercial branch of Rai, Radiotelevisione Italiana Group until May 2020. Since 2021, she is Director of Tg1, the oldest and most prestigious tv news program in Italy.
She has been Vice President of EBU, the European Broadcasting Union.
Monica Maggioni sits on the Administrative Board of ISPI (Institute for the Study of International Politics), Milan, of which she is an active member, participating in conferences and initiatives throughout the year.
She is also a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations and of the Aspen Institute.
Ms Maggioni is a regular speaker at national and international conferences and an advisory member of several economical institutions.
She served on the Executive Board of Institute Treccani, publisher of the Italian Encyclopaedia and a major cultural institution in the country.
As a journalist, Monica Maggioni starts working for Rai in 1992 after graduating from the Master School of Radio and Tv Journalism (SGRTV) in Perugia. From 1994 to 1996, she is at Euronews (Lyon) in the multilingual newsroom of the first European all-news channel.
In 1996, she is a reporter at TV7, the weekly investigative programme of TG1 (RAI’s flagship network). She anchors TG1 and different in-depth programmes, but her main job is war correspondent. She has covered consistently Middle East affairs with a specific focus on Iran. Between 2000 and 2002, she covers the Israeli Palestinian conflict and the most violent phases of the second Intifada. She witnesses the reactions to the 9/11 attacks from the Palestinian territories and Lebanon. In the US, she produces a series of investigations on American domestic terrorism.
In 2003, during the second Gulf War, she is the only Italian journalist embedded in Iraq with the US army. She lives with American soldiers during the three months ground advance from Kuwait to the Iraqi capital. In Baghdad – where she arrives in May 2003 – she covers Iraqi affairs consistently over the following two years. She will return regularly to Iraq from 2007 to 2011.
In 2009, she is embedded with US marines in Afghanistan.
In years, she has met and interviewed heads of State, bloggers, pacifists and terrorists, reporting from all major crisis grounds across the Globe: in September 2013, she interviews Syrian President Assad following the UN resolution on chemical weapons.
In 2008, she moves to the US where she tracks the Presidential campaign and the election of Barack Obama. While reporting for Tg1 RAI, she writes for several Italian and international magazines, including Foreign Policy.
In 2009, she is appointed editor of the Special News Desk of TG1: she is responsible for producing and anchoring Speciale TG1, an in-depth reportage programme.
In 2010 and 2011 she realizes two documentaries, both premiered at the Venice Film Festival: “Out of Tehran” and “Ward 54”, this last wins the Prix Mitrani in Biarritz.
In 2013, she moves on to Rainews24, the all-news channel of the national public television, where she is executive editor of the Tv channel, Televideo (teletext) and the web-based channel Rainews.it. There, Ms Maggioni leads a comprehensive reform of the channel that turns a niche news outlet into a driving innovative force in RAI.
She has received numerous prizes and awards including the Premio Agnes and the Premio Luigi Barzini and written three books: Dentro la Guerra (Longanesi, 2005), La fine della verità (Longanesi, 2006), Terrore Mediatico (Laterza, 2015) and – among other essays – Twitter e jihad (ISPI, 2015).
She is member of Comité d’éthique de Radio France e del Comité indépendant relatif à l’honnêteté, a l’independence et au pluralisme de l’information et des programmes de France Télévisions.
She is Professor of History of Contemporary Conflicts, Faculty of Political Sciences, Cattolica del Sacro Cuore University, Milan.
In November 2019 she was awarded the honourable Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur.