Lorenzo Bini Smaghi Joins Lazard As Senior Advisor

Paris, October 5, 2026 – Lazard today announced that Lorenzo Bini Smaghi is joining the firm as Senior Advisor in Europe.

With extensive experience at the heart of the European economy and financial markets, Lorenzo Bini Smaghi will support Lazard’s Managing Directors and teams in their strategic reflection on behalf of major clients across Europe, in the financial sector and beyond, as well as in Sovereign Advisory globally.

“I am delighted to welcome Lorenzo Bini Smaghi as Senior Advisor and to benefit from his experience and advice for our Financial Advisory business in Europe. His understanding of financial mechanisms, his knowledge of the European economy and his appetite for strategic insights will be valuable assets for our corporate, investor and sovereign clients in Europe and around the world.” declared Jean-Louis Girodolle, Co-Head of European Investment Banking at Lazard.

An Italian national, Lorenzo Bini Smaghi is an economist and senior European banking official. He was previously Chairman of the Board of Directors of Société Générale from 2015 to 2026. He held the same position at Italgas, and at Snam from 2012 to 2016, and at SACE from 2001 to 2005, in Italy. He was a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank from 2005 to 2011. Before that, he was Director General for International Affairs at Italy’s Ministry of Economy and Finance from 1998, and earlier Head of the Policy Division at the European Monetary Institute from 1994. He began his career as an economist in the Research Department of the Bank of Italy in 1983. He graduated in economics from the Université catholique de Louvain in Belgium and earned a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago.