Organization

Founder of COGEA, he has been involved in management and organisational consultancy, technical assistance to public administrations and local authorities for over 40 years, with special focus on technical assistance and support to the public administration in the field of ESI Funds.   He has over 40 years of experience in rural development policies and strategies. He has been involved for over 20 years in the coordination of working groups involved in I and II level financial checks on ESIF programmes. He coordinates working groups for EU, regional, national and transnational programmes and projects.

Spoken language: Italian COGEA’s Partner, he has been involved for 30 years in technical assistance in the field of local development, agricultural and fisheries’ policies, working as a team leader projects to support public administrations and public-private partnerships for the implementation of complex programmes and projects.   Since 2003, he has been responsible for technical assistance activities to the Management Authorities of Rural Development Programmes /Leader. He has specific knowledge of the main integrated and participatory design tools. He is an expert in integrated design and supply chain valorisation systems. He is an expert in economic research activities, sector studies, improvement and valorisation of quality production, he has participated, as a senior expert, in evaluation of the Common Agricultural Policy for the European Commission – Directorate-General Agriculture (DG AGRI).

Spoken language: Italian Partner and Board Member of COGEA, she has been involved in management and organisational consulting since 1989. She is responsible for the Evaluation Area of COGEA and coordinates teams involved in EU, local, national and transnational programmes and projects. In the past 20 years she has coordinated more than 30 evaluations of EU policies and programmes. She has over 15 years of experience specifically in EU rural development. She has project managed evaluations of rural development programmes in the 2000-2006, 2007-2013 and 2014-2020 funding periods.   She is the President of the EEIG “AGROSYNERGIE”, an economic interest group established under the Belgian law with registered and operational headquarters in Brussels, of which COGEA is one of the founding members. The EEIG carries out evaluation and technical assistance services for the European Commission in the field of EU agricultural and fisheries policies.

Spoken language Italian Involved in management consulting since 1982 and COGEA Partner since 1990, since 2010 he has developed a European network of companies and organisations specialised in Fisheries and Maritime Policy issues. In 2012, he became the leader of the EUNETMAR consortium, which includes 10 entities, including companies and universities, based in several European countries. He is currently Project Manager and leader of the consortia in charge of developing the European Market Observatory for Fishery and Aquaculture Products (EUMOFA) and EMODnet "Human activities”. He cooperates with leading organisations in Europe on research and development issues and market intelligence solutions.

Spoken language Italian Senior consultant with more than 22 years of experience in the field of consultancy to public bodies and agencies, with a special focus on the coordination and management of complex services to support the management and/or control of programmes co-financed by ESI and/or national Funds. He’s gained specific expertise in providing technical support for the preparation and transmission to the European Commission of certified statements of expenditure and payment requests in relation to their accuracy, reliability of accounting systems and verifiability of supporting documents. In particular, he has been involved for 18 years in audits regarding control and management systems of several certifying authorities of co-financed programmes in the previous and current funding period; audits on the activities carried out by the paying and Certifying authorities in the processing and submission of interim and final payment requests to the EU Commission; control of the certifications of expenditure received and claimed for payment; audits on the reliability and efficiency of accounting systems; control of compliance with EU regulations and principles in the assessment and management of expenditure subject to certification, as well as irregularities, recovery of funds and application of interest on arrears.

Spoken language Italian Alessandro has developed a ten-year experience in the sectors of Fisheries and Maritime Policy, having worked on several projects funded by DG MARE and DG MOVE of the European Commission. He has been involved in data collection and management, specialising in the integration between sources from different EU and non-EU countries. Since September 2013, he is the coordinator of EMODnet Human Activities, a portal funded by the European Commission with an interactive map showing the location and characteristics of human activities in the marine environment. Recently, he has been focusing on algae and seaweed products, also thanks to the coordination of the study "Blue bioeconomy: Situation report and perspective", within the EUMOFA project, on which he has been working since 2010. His most important experiences include a study on environmental charging schemes applied by European ports (commissioned by DG MOVE) and a market study on maritime renewable energies (commissioned by DG MOVE): two projects that have had a wide echo in research and industry alike. He is regularly invited as a speaker at conferences, symposia and presentations on maritime policy issues. A native Italian speaker, he has perfect command of English and Spanish.