IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, who assumed office on 3 December 2019, is a diplomat with 40 years of experience across a wide range of fields, including peace and security, non-proliferation and disarmament, and international development.
He works at the intersection of security, science, and development, and is frequently an impartial diplomatic broker, mediating during moments of international crisis.
Before his election as IAEA Director General, Mr Grossi was president-designate of the 2020 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), and from 2014 to 2016 served as president of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). He was the NSG’s first president to serve two successive terms. In 2015, Mr Grossi presided over the Diplomatic Conference of the Convention of Nuclear Safety, securing unanimous approval for the Vienna Declaration on Nuclear Safety, an important milestone in international efforts following the 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear accident.
In 2013, he was appointed Ambassador of Argentina to the Republic of Austria and Argentine Representative to the IAEA and other Vienna-based international organizations, which include the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, (UNODC), United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), among others.
From 2010 to 2013, he served as Assistant Director General for Policy and Chief of Cabinet at the IAEA, having previously held senior positions in the Argentine Foreign Service, including as Political Affairs Director General from 2007 to 2009.
Mr Grossi was Chief of Cabinet at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague from 2002 to 2007. Prior to this, he served in the Argentine Foreign Ministry, including as Head of Embassy in Belgium and Luxemburg from 1998 to 2002, and as Argentine Representative to NATO from 1998 to 2001. Mr Grossi joined the Argentine Foreign Ministry in 1985.
Mr Grossi is an International Gender Champion. Women in Nuclear awarded him the 2025 Changemaker of Distinction Award, recognising his success in achieving parity within the IAEA and his efforts to widen the nuclear sector’s talent pool through the IAEA Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship Programme and the Lise Meitner Programme, both of which he launched to support women professionals.
He holds a PhD in International Relations, international History and Politics from University of Geneva’s Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, from which he also received his Master’s degree and was Alumnus of the Year in 2022. He began his academic journey at the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina and at the Diplomatic Academy of Argentina.
Mr Grossi has received numerous national awards, including Brazil’s Order of Naval Merit; the National Medal on the occasion of the 30th Anniversary of Independence of Kazakhstan; the Grand Decoration of Honour in Gold with Sash for Services to the Republic of Austria, and the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. In 2023, the Capitoline Assembly of the Municipality of Rome made him an honorary citizen, and the City of Buenos Aires declared him Outstanding Personality in the area of Political and Social Science. He also received Colombia’s Grand Cross of the Order of San Carlos. In 2024, he was awarded the Orden Nacional al Mérito Comuneros of the Honourable House of Deputies of Paraguay and the Order of Merit from Peru.
That year he also received the Henry DeWolf Smyth Nuclear Statesman Award from the American Nuclear Society (ANS) and the Nuclear Energy Institute. In 2022, Mr Grossi and the IAEA, had received a Presidential Citation for their work in Ukraine from ANS, and in 2021 Mr Grossi was named Personality of the Year by ANS Latin America.
In 2025, Piedmont’s Carbonara Scrivia, from where Mr Grossi’s grandparents emigrated to Argentina, made him an honorary citizen. In Argentina he received the TAEDA 2025 prize, the Silver Laurel Personality of the Year prize from the Rotary
Club of Buenos Aires, and the Carlos Mu?iz prize by the Argentine Council for International Relations.
Mr Grossi’s honorary degrees and academic distinctions include, the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina’s International Chair for Sustainable Development, Common Good and Peace; an honorary doctorate in law from the University of Buenos Aires; an honorary degree in Nuclear Engineering from Polytechnic University of Milan; an honorary doctorate in Global Studies from Busan University of Foreign Studies; a Doctor Honoris Causa from the Universidad Nacional de Asunción; and a Doctor Honoris Causa from EPFL in Switzerland.