Letta Gianni

Avezzano (L’Aquila), 15 April 1935. Resident in Rome.

Journalist – Graduate in law.

After practising law for several years in his father’s law firm, he moved into investigative journalism, a profession in which he had already taken his first steps during his secondary school and university years as a provincial correspondent, first from Avezzano and then from L’Aquila, where he served as a correspondent for several national newspapers, the Rai and Ansa.

In 1958, he moved to Rome as an editor at the daily newspaper Il Tempo, where he gained experience across all departments, particularly the Foreign Affairs Department, before taking charge of the Provincial News Desk and the Editorial Secretariat as Editor-in-Chief. In 1971, he was appointed by Renato Angiolillo to the Administrative Management of Il Tempo and subsequently, having been co-opted onto the Board of Directors, took on the role of Chief Executive Officer of S.E.R. (Società Editoriale Romana) and TI.CO. (Tipografica Colonna), the publisher and printer of the Roman daily newspaper respectively. On 16 August 1973, following the death of Senator Angiolillo, he also took over the management of Il Tempoo, a role he held for almost 15 years, until the end of 1987.

From 1973 to 1987, he served as Director and Editor-in-Chief of the Roman newspaper, which he subsequently left to take on managerial and editorial responsibilities within the Fininvest Group and on the Board of Directors of Mondadori. As Vice-President of Fininvest Comunicazioni, he represented the Group in Rome, with responsibility for and management of the Rome office. As Editorial Director of the Fininvest – Mediaset Group, he oversaw the coordination of the Group’s news and current affairs activities. He produced and presented television programmes, notably on Canale 5, including Italia Domanda: a weekly programme of political and cultural debate on domestic and international issues.

For many years, he was Head of the Press Office of the National Federation of Knights of Labour and subsequently Head of the Research and Documentation Office of the Palazzo della Civiltà del Lavoro Foundation, on behalf of which he edited a series of volumes on socio-economic issues.

He served as Undersecretary to the Prime Minister during the first Berlusconi government (1994–1995); during the second Berlusconi government (2001–2005); in the third Berlusconi government (2005–2006); and in the fourth Berlusconi government (2008–2011).