Marco Conti was appointed Director of the Department of Engineering, ICT and Technologies for Energy and Transport (DIITET) of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR), effective 1 August 2026. He previously held the same position from 2012 to 2016. A Senior Research Director at CNR and President of the FAIR Foundation (Future AI Research), he is nationally and internationally recognized for his contributions to computer networking, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity. Throughout his career, he has held numerous leadership roles in research and innovation. Since October 2025, he has served as the Italian Coordinator of the Canada-Italy Joint Advisory Group on Artificial Intelligence. Since December 2024, he has chaired the Scientific and Technical Committee of Eniquantic, the joint venture established by Eni and ITQuanta for the development of quantum computing technologies. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the SERICS Foundation and serves on both the Strategic Committee and the Board of Directors of EURid, the organization responsible for managing the “.eu” domain name registry on behalf of the European Commission. From 2019 to 2024, he served as Director of the CNR Institute of Informatics and Telematics (IIT) and Head of the .it Registry, the authority responsible for managing Italy’s Internet domain names. Previously, from 2016 to 2019, he was Scientific Advisor for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) at CNR. In 2017, he was named a Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate, a distinction recognizing the world’s most influential researchers in their respective scientific fields. Since 2018, he has been a member of Gruppo 2003, an association bringing together Italy’s most highly cited scientists in the international scientific literature. His scientific research has focused on computer networks, distributed systems, data science, and distributed artificial intelligence. He has also contributed to the development of Italy’s national research policies through his participation in strategic initiatives and advisory bodies, including the National Committee for Cybersecurity Research, the National PhD Programme in Artificial Intelligence, and the working groups responsible for the Italian National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence.