Ms Giacona was born on 9 March 1961 and is married, with one daughter.
She graduated from the University of Palermo with a degree in law, is qualified to practice law and is certified to teach legal subjects at the secondary school level.
After joining the Bank of Italy in late 1986, she worked for around 15 years in the Bank's branch network in the area of banking supervision, including serving as an inspector. In 2002, she was made deputy director of a branch. In 2003, she was transferred to the Head Office in Rome, in the Banking and Financial Supervision Area, where she headed the Special Situations Division, which was responsible for managing crises involving banks and financial intermediaries and, in 2007, was made Head of the Secretariat of the Committee of Inquiry into Infractions, which was responsible for imposing sanctions.
In 2009, she moved to the Central Banking, Markets and Payment Systems Area where she was involved in risk management, leading the Equity and Corporate Risk Division which handles the Bank's financial investments, including negotiating and entering into contracts with major international operators. As such, she managed the Bank's listed and unlisted equity interests and stock portfolio, monitoring their performance and tracking risk indicators, and establishing the investment criteria, which includes consideration of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors.
In 2020, she returned to handling banking crises, becoming Deputy Head of the Resolution and Crisis Management Unit.
As of January 2023, she is Head of the Supervisory Institutional Relations Directorate.
Among her professional activities, she has conducted research and has been a speaker at conferences on topics such as banking supervision, bankruptcy law reform, financial markets and sustainable investment. She has taught courses and seminars for Bank of Italy staff and at foreign institutions and universities.
Ms Giacona has also sat on commissions to interview and select external and internal employment candidates. She has served as a Bank representative for the Interbank Deposit Protection Fund and the Guarantee Fund for Cooperative Banks and was a member of the Supervisory Board of Sidief SpA, the company that manages the Bank's investment property portfolio.
In international forums, she has been the Bank's principal delegate to the International Capital Markets Association (ICMA) and to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), taking part in in their general meetings.
She has also held positions in the European crisis management system, participating as a member of the Single Resolution Board's (SRB) Resolution Committee and the European Banking Authority's (EBA) Standing Committee on Resolution.
