Serving the Italian State, 16,000 kilometers from home

A SURE POINT OF REFERENCE TO SOLVE PROBLEMS LARGE AND SMALL FOR CITIZENS AND FIRMS: THIS IS WHAT A MODERN DIPLOMAT DOES, AS EXPLAINS LUNA ANGELINI MARINUCCI, ITALIAN CONSUL IN BRISBANE

A career dream, but with her feet firmly anchored to the ground. The choice of Bocconi, with a diplomatic career in mind, represented a sort of safety plan. If plan A, diplomacy, went wrong, there was always plan B, i.e. the range of professional positions that a Bocconi international degree makes accessible. It is this, combined with the opportunity to learn foreign languages which pushed Luna Angelini Marinucci to enroll at Bocconi and then graduate in Economics and Social Sciences, before devoting herself to plan A and in 2022 becoming the appointed Italian Consul in Brisbane, Australia, with territorial jurisdiction over the Gold Coast, the State of Queensland and the Northern Territory.

The work of the modern diplomat is increasingly oriented towards offering services. What are your duties and which ones do you value the most?
The versatility that is required from a consul and the variety of areas in which I am called to work in to make my job effective: as Head of the Consulate I have to coordinate the office that provides consular services; maintain relations with the resident Italian community and with local Italian institutions, firms and associations; administratively manage the Consulate and take care of external projection, also via the use of social media.
 
What does diplomacy represent today and how is it evolving in the global geopolitical context?
In a changing world, where unexpected events follow one another and where we increasingly find ourselves having to deal with uncertainty, at a global level but also at the private level, that of individual households, the Consulate must be a safety anchor, capable of generating trust in Italian citizens abroad. In Brisbane, for example, the sense of Italian identity and belonging to the Italian community is highly developed and fellow nationals appreciate and benefit from the reassuring presence of Italian institutions.

Your career is still in its infancy but you have already been appointed Consul. Would you advise a young person in favor of pursuing a diplomatic career?
I strongly recommend a diplomatic career to all those who want to understand the world, in its most manifold political, economic, cultural, social facets. Being curious and interested in the world around us and reading a lot are, I think, the two characteristics that all those who manage to enter diplomacy have in common.

You are part of the digital generation that is used to live on social media. How does it impact your job as Consul?
Social media have revolutionized the way a diplomat works, providing a new tool for the external projection of Italy which did not exist fifteen years ago. The positive side of the social networks lies in the feeling of closeness they create with fellow nationals: the Consulate is now just a click away. The risks lie in the users’ differing levels of digital literacy, who in some cases could end up receiving less information as the digitization of services proceeds, and the higher probability of misinformation and privacy exposure that there is in online services.
 
A job that requires great preparation and, sometimes, also the ability to deal with unforeseen situations…
Yes, I like to mention an anecdote. In the midst of the Covid emergency, when I was still working in Rome in the Farnesina foreign ministry building, I provided assistance to a well-known Italian circus that had gotten stuck in another continent with all the animals that needed to be fed and looked after until the borders could reopen.

by Davide Ripamonti