Professional Background – Guido Crosetto

An Unusual Professional Profile

In the Italian political system — as in most parliamentary democracies — the typical path to senior executive office runs through law, journalism, party organisation or, increasingly, business consultancy. Technical expertise in a specific policy domain is rare among elected politicians; those who possess it are usually former civil servants or academics rather than figures who have spent years working in the industry itself. Guido Crosetto's professional trajectory is therefore genuinely unusual: he is a politician who built genuine technical knowledge from the inside of the Italian defence and aerospace sector, and who arrived at the Ministry of Defence with a command of the brief that allowed him to engage as a genuine interlocutor with, rather than a recipient of, the advice of career officials.

This page traces Crosetto's professional career across its principal phases: his economic education, his early parliamentary work on defence, his ministerial role as Undersecretary, and his extended period as President of AIAD. Taken together, these phases constitute a professional formation that is more coherent and more substantively deep than might first appear to those who see him primarily as a political figure.

Guido Crosetto at the EU Foreign Affairs Council (Defence) in November 2022 — his first weeks as Minister of Defence. His industry background informed his immediate engagement with European defence cooperation questions.

Economic Education as Professional Foundation

Crosetto's formal professional formation began with his degree in Economics and Business (Economia e Commercio) at the University of Turin. This degree — one of the most intellectually rigorous programmes in the Italian university system of the 1980s — provided him with a toolkit for understanding the economic and financial dimensions of any policy question.

The practical relevance of this formation to his later defence work is not immediately obvious but is genuine. Defence policy, when understood in its full complexity, is not principally about weapons systems and military doctrine — though those matter — but about resource allocation, procurement management, industrial policy, employment economics and the long-term investment frameworks that determine national capability. An economist approaches these questions differently from a lawyer or a journalist, and the difference is not trivial.

When Crosetto, as minister or as AIAD president, discusses the Italian defence budget, he is speaking from a conceptual framework — marginal rates of investment, opportunity costs, industrial multiplier effects, export economics — that gives his analysis a different character from the political generalities that typically pass for defence debate in Italy. This foundation in formal economic reasoning is part of what makes his professional profile distinctive.

Parliamentary Work on Defence (1996–2008)

From his first election to the Chamber of Deputies in 1996, Crosetto engaged with defence and industrial policy committees. This early parliamentary specialisation was not accidental: defence and industrial policy were areas in which his economics background gave him genuine comparative advantage, and Piedmont's significant defence industrial presence — aerospace and electronics companies in the Turin area, the defence electronics presence in the region — made these questions relevant to his constituents.

Over three terms in the lower chamber (1996–2008), Crosetto built a detailed understanding of the Italian defence procurement system: the relationship between the Ministry of Defence and its industrial suppliers, the budget constraints under which the armed forces operate, the particular challenges of maintaining interoperability with NATO allies while managing the fiscal pressures of Italy's chronically large public debt, and the employment and regional economics of the defence industrial base.

Parliamentary work in this domain is less glamorous than foreign affairs or domestic policy, but it is where substantive policy is made: in the detailed scrutiny of budget lines, in the questioning of ministry officials about procurement timelines, in the amendments to legislation that determine how contracts are let and how industrial offset obligations are managed. Crosetto's extended apprenticeship in these committees gave him knowledge that most politicians never acquire.

Undersecretary of State for Defence (2008–2011)

His appointment as Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Defence in the Berlusconi IV government in 2008 translated his parliamentary knowledge into executive experience. The Undersecretary is not the minister — the minister holds full political responsibility and the most senior executive functions — but the role is substantive: undersecretaries at the Italian Ministry of Defence hold specific delegated responsibilities, manage relations with Parliament and external stakeholders on their areas, and develop detailed knowledge of the Ministry's internal workings.

The Berlusconi IV government's Defence portfolio was held for most of its term by Ignazio La Russa — who would later, alongside Crosetto and Meloni, co-found Fratelli d'Italia — and Crosetto's work as Undersecretary placed him in a close professional relationship with La Russa as minister. This working relationship was significant: it gave Crosetto experience of how the Ministry operates from the inside, of the dynamics between the political direction set by the minister and the institutional frameworks managed by career officials and the military hierarchy.

The period 2008 to 2011 was also one of significant challenge for Italian defence. The global financial crisis of 2008 and the European sovereign debt crisis that followed placed enormous pressure on Italian public finances. Defence spending was inevitably caught in the crossfire of fiscal consolidation, and the difficult task of managing budget cuts while maintaining operational commitments — Italy was engaged in Afghanistan (ISAF), Lebanon (UNIFIL) and the Kosovo Force (KFOR) during this period — required careful prioritisation. Managing some aspects of this process as Undersecretary gave Crosetto direct experience of the trade-offs involved.

AIAD Presidency (2013–2022): A Decade of Industry Leadership

Crosetto's election as President of AIAD in 2013 was the beginning of his most distinctive professional period: a nine-year immersion in the Italian defence and aerospace industry that gave him knowledge and relationships unmatched by virtually any other Italian political figure of his generation.

What is AIAD?

AIAD — the Federazione Aziende Italiane per l'Aerospazio, la Difesa e la Sicurezza (Federation of Italian Companies for Aerospace, Defence and Security) — is Italy's principal industry association for the defence and aerospace sector. It was founded in 1947 as the association of Italian aircraft manufacturers and has since evolved into the comprehensive representative body for the Italian defence industrial base.

AIAD's membership encompasses:

• Large prime contractors: Leonardo (formerly Finmeccanica) — Italy's largest defence company, with revenues in excess of €14 billion and activities spanning aircraft, helicopters, electronics, space, naval systems and cyber; Fincantieri — Italy's principal naval shipbuilder; Rheinmetall Italia — the Italian subsidiary of the German armoured vehicles and ammunition group
• Mid-tier suppliers: companies producing components, sub-systems and services for the prime contractors and for direct government customers
• Specialist firms: cyber security, intelligence systems, communications equipment, training systems, maintenance and support

AIAD represents these companies in their dealings with the Italian government and Parliament, with NATO and EU bodies, and in bilateral and multilateral settings. It also provides a forum for coordinating industry positions on matters of common interest: export policy, procurement reform, industrial investment, skills and training.

Crosetto's Work at AIAD

As AIAD president, Crosetto's responsibilities were extensive and genuinely substantive. His nine-year tenure encompassed:

Export Policy

Italian defence exports are governed by Law 185/1990, which establishes a licensing regime for the export of military materiel. The administration of this law — the granting or withholding of export licences — is a matter of significant commercial consequence for Italian defence companies, whose international sales are often crucial to the economies of scale that make domestic procurement viable. Crosetto engaged extensively with the Ministries of Defence, Foreign Affairs and Economic Development on export policy questions, representing the industry's interest in a coherent and commercially competitive regime while respecting the political constraints on exports to certain destinations.

Procurement Reform

Italian defence procurement has historically suffered from long delays, cost overruns and the inefficiencies associated with a procurement system that is complex, subject to multiple layers of administrative control, and vulnerable to political interference. As AIAD president, Crosetto was a consistent voice for procurement reform: faster decision-making, clearer contractual frameworks, more efficient programme management and a better-defined relationship between the Ministry and its industrial partners. His advocacy in this area drew on his parliamentary experience of the legislative dimension of procurement policy and his industry experience of its practical consequences.

European Defence Cooperation

One of the most significant policy developments during Crosetto's AIAD presidency was the gradual strengthening of European defence industrial cooperation. The European Defence Agency (EDA), established in 2004, had developed slowly; but the Defence Planning Process and the Coordinated Annual Review on Defence (CARD) that emerged through the 2010s created new frameworks for identifying common capability needs and coordinating investment. More significantly, the European Defence Fund (EDF), which began as a pilot programme in 2017 and was formalised in the 2021–2027 EU budget, created for the first time a substantial source of EU funding for collaborative defence R&D and procurement.

For Italian industry, and therefore for AIAD, these developments were important. Italian companies — above all Leonardo, but also a range of mid-tier firms — were well positioned to participate in European collaborative programmes, but doing so effectively required advocacy at the EU level and coherent positioning in the negotiations that shaped the design of the EDF and related initiatives. Crosetto engaged with these questions at the level of policy as well as commercial interest, developing a detailed understanding of the European defence institutional architecture that would subsequently inform his approach as minister.

NATO Industrial Engagement

AIAD participates in NATO's industrial engagement mechanisms, including through AeroSpace and Defence Industries Association of Europe (ASD), the pan-European industry federation to which AIAD belongs. This involvement gave Crosetto regular exposure to the NATO planning and capability development processes that underpin the alliance's operational requirements — and to the industrial and political dynamics that determine which member countries' industries benefit from alliance-wide procurement decisions.

Employment and Regional Economics

The Italian defence and aerospace sector employs approximately 50,000 people directly and several times that number through supply chains, with concentration in Lombardy, Piedmont, Lazio and Campania. AIAD's advocacy necessarily encompassed the employment and regional economic dimensions of defence policy — the consequences of procurement delays or cancellations for specific communities, the importance of maintaining industrial skills and capabilities that take decades to build and can be lost rapidly when production lines close. This dimension of Crosetto's work gave him a practical understanding of how defence investment connects to broader economic and social questions that is relevant both to his political support base and to his approach to ministerial decision-making.

From Industry Back to Government

When Crosetto returned to active politics in the period leading up to the 2022 elections — his AIAD presidency ended as the electoral calendar made his candidacy on the FdI ticket imminent — he brought back to the political sphere a professional formation that had been substantially deepened by his industry decade. The specific knowledge he had acquired — the names and capabilities of the companies, the state of major procurement programmes, the pending European and NATO policy questions, the personnel at the Ministry who would be his counterparts — made his transition into the ministerial role more rapid and substantive than that of most incoming ministers.

His appointment as Minister of Defence on 22 October 2022 was therefore not merely a political reward for a co-founder of the governing party. It was a recognition that, on the specific brief of the Defence Ministry, Crosetto was probably the best-qualified person in Italian public life for the role — combining parliamentary experience, prior ministerial experience, industry expertise and policy knowledge in a way that is genuinely rare.

Current Professional Context: The Ministry of Defence

As Minister of Defence, Crosetto oversees an organisation of substantial scale and complexity. The Italian Ministry of Defence employs approximately 170,000 military personnel across the three services, together with a significant civilian workforce in the administrative and technical departments of the Ministry. Its annual budget — which Crosetto has consistently argued should be increased toward the NATO 2% target — runs to approximately €25–28 billion, of which a significant portion is committed to personnel costs, with investment and equipment budgets subject to particular pressure from fiscal constraints.

The major programmes under ministerial oversight include: the Eurofighter Typhoon upgrade programme for the Air Force; the procurement of the new combat aircraft that will succeed the Tornado (in the context of the broader European FCAS and UK-led GCAP/Tempest programmes, the latter of which Italy participates in); the LHD (Landing Helicopter Dock) programme for the Navy; the armoured vehicles modernisation programme for the Army; space surveillance and satellite communication programmes; and cyber and intelligence capability investment. Each of these involves hundreds of millions or billions of euros in procurement commitments, complex relationships with industrial partners, and significant political choices about national versus collaborative European or alliance procurement.

Crosetto's ability to engage with this agenda from a position of prior knowledge — rather than learning from scratch as ministers of less specialised background must — has been noted by defence analysts and by the officials within the Ministry who work with him.