Alexander Italianer (born 16 March 1956) is a retired European civil servant from the Netherlands who served as Secretary-General of the European Commission from 2015 to 2018.

Alexander Italianer was born in 1956 in London, United Kingdom, the son of Dutch diplomat Franz Italianer.^[1] He was educated in the Netherlands, completing high school in Leiden. He graduated in econometrics at the University of Groningen in 1980, and received his PhD in economics at the same university in 1986.^[2] Between 1980 and 1985 he was an assistant at the Catholic University of Leuven.

In 1985 he became a civil servant at the European Commission; first as an advisor, then as head of the administrative unit of the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs. He worked in the Cabinet of Commission President Jacques Santer during the Santer Commission (1995–1999) and became a Cabinet Head under Günter Verheugen.^[2] In 2002, he was promoted to Director of the Directorate-General Economic and Financial Affairs. Subsequent positions include Cabinet Head to Commissioner Pavel Telička and Deputy Cabinet Head for the President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso (2004 until 2006)^[3] and Deputy Secretary-General (2006 until 2010).^[4] After being the Director-General of the Directorate-General for Competition from 2010 until 2015, he became Secretary-General of the European Commission on 1 September 2015, a position he held until 1 March 2018.^[5] In 2018 he retired from the European Commission.

In 2019 he took a position as an international policy advisor for the American law firm Arnold & Porter.^[6][7]

Italianer has published more than 50 articles and 3 books about the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union, integration economics, labour, energy, macroeconomics and international trade.

• European Civil Service