is Director of the CSF Foundation. As Head of international relations at the Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo in Turin, Italy, for over two decades he has designed and overseen grant-making and operational activities on transatlantic and European studies, and Mediterranean and emerging-country affairs, including the multi-year strategic partnership agreements with The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) and the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI). Russo Perez is a member of IAI’s Board and of the European Council on Foreign Relations, and serves on the scientific board of the NATO Defense College Foundation in Rome.

Nicolò was a member of the strategic reflection group on European affairs established by the Italian presidency of the country’s Council of Ministers. He has worked at the European Commission and the International Labour Organization, and he was a senior associate fellow at the European Union Institute for Security Studies in Paris.

He studied modern and contemporary history at the University Ca' Foscari in Venice, graduating summa cum laude with a thesis on Thomas Jefferson and the early phase of American foreign policy. He also studied international relations at the Free University in Berlin’s Kennedy Institute; the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); and the University Institute of European Studies in Turin. He was the recipient of an Alberto Aquarone/Italian Fulbright Commission Award.