Washington was in my destiny

If it's not love is definitely a long-term engagement. This is the relationship of Andrea Salerno with Washington. Several times, in fact, across the evolution of his international career , the name of the US capital returns, down to his current position at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). "Even in my years as Bocconi student, although the period was wonderful thanks to people I met at the University that have become friends of a lifetime, and the steady support of my family, it was clear that my professional destiny went beyond Milan," recalls Andrea, who today lives in the shadow of the White house with his wife. They have a little girl and another child on the way.

"My ideas became clearer during my studies at CLAPI in economics of international organizations, when I did a short internship at the Mexican division of the Inter-American Development Bank, which made me realize that I wanted to work in the international public sector, possibly something related to the development of emerging countries". Graduation day arrives but Andrea almost does not notice it, because has been working for a few weeks in Washington already, still at the Inter-American Development Bank, but this time with a long-term employment contract. "I spent five years there," the Bocconi alumnus sums up, "but my mind kept telling me that, in order to understand development, I had to get a first-hand knowledge of Africa. And so, in late 2011, I left for Tunis, which housed the African Development Bank."

The experience, however, does not go exactly as planned, and therefore Andrea's personal prospects for career growth seemed to run aground in that context. "Maybe I was personally unprepared for that environment, but it was there that I met my future wife." At the first opportunity, therefore, he accepts a new position, in Egypt, at the International Finance Corporation (which is part of the World Bank), where he remains nearly three years before returning to Washington, this time at the International Monetary Fund. "Among the core tasks of the Fund, there is the management of sizable development funds, about $250 million a year, which is then spent in technical assistance and training projects on the field," Andrea says. "In this system I manage funds donated by Japan, mainly going toward other Asian countries. For instance, I deal with the challenges of setting up from scratch a system of banking supervision for Myanmar, a country that has only recently opened to the world. When I do my job, I realize I owe a lot to my CLAPI graduate degree. When I was a student I thought it delved into too many subjects, from law to international relations, from languages to marketing, to the detriment of a clear specialization. But this actually turned out to be its strength, and it's been very useful to have an overall view of how such complex and hyper-specialized organizations operate in the international environment."

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