Ronald P. Spogli has served as the United States Ambassador to Italy and San Marino since August 10, 2005. Born in Los Angeles in 1948, Spogli graduated from Stanford University with an AB in History in 1970 and went on to receive his MBA in 1975 from Harvard University, where he was a classmate of future president George W. Bush.

 

Between 1968 and 1973, Spogli spent nearly three years in Italy working on various activities sponsored by Stanford University. From September 1968 to March 1969, he studied at Stanford’s Florence campus. From June 1970 to July 1971 he was the assistant to the Directors of the Florence program. From June 1972 until August 1973, Spogli was lead researcher for a project studying the social impact of labor migration from Southern Italy to the Italian industrial north.

 

After working as a managing director of the investment banking division at Dean Witter Reynolds, in 1983, together with Bradford M. Freeman, Spogli founded Freeman Spogli & Co., one of the leading private equity investment firms in the United States. Since its founding, it has invested in 36 companies worth more than $12 billion. Spogli has also served on the board of directors of more than twenty different companies.

 

Since 2001, he has been a member of Stanford’s Overseas Studies Council, a faculty/alumni body that advises on Stanford’s International studies programs. In 2000, he became a member of the Board of Visitors of Stanford’s Institute for International Studies, the University’s primary forum for interdisciplinary research on key international issues and challenges.

 

In 2002, President George W. Bush appointed Spogli to the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship board .

 

Spogli has donated $528,316 to various Republican candidates and causes, including Norm Coleman, Mitt Romney, Arizona Republican Party, Billy Tauzin, George W. Bush, and Pete Wilson. He also gave $1,000 to Joe Biden in 1996.

 

Ronald P. Spogli’s Official Biography