Francesco Profumo was born in 1953. He is married and has three children. From 1979 to 1984, he worked as a design engineer at Genoa-based Ansaldo’s Center for Research and Development. In 1984, he moved to the Department of Electrical Machines of the Polytechnic of Turin, where he was an Associate Professor until 1995. He is currently a Full Professor of Machines and Electrical Drives at the Polytechnic of Turin and an Adjunct professor at the University of Bologna. In September 2003, Prof. Profumo became Dean of the School of Engineering and since October 2005 has served as President of the Polytechnic of Turin. Since August 2011 he has been the President of the National Research Council. From November 2011 to April 2013 he held the Office of the Minister of Education, University and Research during the Monti administration. As far as his research activities are concerned, he was involved in the conception and design of innovative systems in the field of power electronics, power electronic components, electronic/electromechanical integrated systems, high-performance electrical drives, digital controls for industrial automation, power conditioning systems and electromechanical systems with structures and use of non-conventional materials. He has published over 250 papers on international scientific journals and on proceedings of field Conferences. He is a reviewer of numerous scientific journals and an active member of the IEEE-IAS Drives Committee (United States), as well as many technical committees of international conferences. He has carried out his teaching and research activities in various universities in the world: Argentina, China, Hungary, Albania, Romania, Latvia, USA, Japan, Czech Republic and has received 10 Honorary Degrees. He has been a member of the Academy of Sciences since 2007 and of the Accademia Europaea - Physics and Engineering Section in 2010. He was awarded the China Awards by the Italy-China Foundation (2009), the Certificate of Appreciation from the Fulbright Commission (2009), the Orden Universidad Javeriana from Javeriana University (Bogota, Colombia) (2010), Escudo de Oro from the University of Antioquia (Medellin, Colombia) (2010), the Golden Lion (2008), Prize Valdo Fusi (2011), the Premio Guido Carli (2011) and the Pericles Award (2013). He was a member of the Board of Directors of Unicredit Private Bank, the Sole 24 Ore newspaper, Telecom and Pirelli. He was a member of the Advisory Board of Unicredit Private Banking and a member of the Board of Innogest Fund and Reply. From November 2011 to November 2012, he was Chairman of the Council of the European Space Agency. Francesco Profumo, since June 27 2013, has been the President of Iren SpA and, since July 14 2014, President of the Italian branch of ESCP Europe.