Giuseppe Abbamonte, Director of the Directorate Media & Data DG CONNECT European Commission

I was appointed Director of the Media and Data Directorate in the Digital Agenda Department of the European Commission (DG CONNECT) in January 2014. The Directorate is, amongst many other things, responsible for the development and follow-up of the European Big Data Strategy and the European regulatory framework on audiovisual media services.
In my twenty one years at the Commission I have worked in the antitrust, consumer and digital agenda departments. In the antitrust department (DG COMP) I worked as desk officer on numerous prominent mergers and acquisitions cases. I was the main case handler in AOL/Time Warner (at that time the largest merger in US business history) and in EMI/Time Warner and worked on several mergers between European telcos (e.g. Telia/Telenor: the merger of the main Swedish and Norwegian telephone and TV operators).
In the consumer department (DG SANCO) I was the head of a legislative unit, responsible for the drafting of most of EU consumer laws. 
I joined DG CONNECT in January 2011 as head of the electronic communications policy development unit and then of the cybersecurity and on-line privacy unit. As part of the latter job I supervised and directed the elaboration of the European Cybersecurity Strategy and of a proposal for a European law on network and information security.
Before joining the Commission I was an associate in an international law firm in Milan for four years (1989/1992), where he dealt mainly with commercial law and competition law. I am the author of several publications mainly in English law magazines.