Marta is the founder and CEO of LAGO, a research and creative collective on migration, culture and the arts. She is the Chair of the Global Creative Economy Council, Senior Adviser at the Moleskine Foundation, Senior Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics, Birmingham University and ODI Global. Before creating LAGO Marta spent most of her career as an executive and senior advisor in leading research and policy organisations at global and national level. She was Managing and Executive Director at ODI, a leading global affairs think tank where she established and led the institute migration and governance work and established ODI Europe.

In her career Marta collaborated with senior teams in UN agencies and other international organisations, philanthropic foundations, universities as well as national and city governments: she advised the ministerial team at the Italian Treasury on local economic development policies and led Save the Children UK Evaluation and Research Unit. Marta holds an MA in philosophy of science and logic from La Statale of Milan and an MSc in research methods and theory of probability from the London School of Economics and King's College London.

Research interests and PhD supervision

The socio and economic impact of the creative economy at local and regional level: global migration; visa policies and regimes; talent and skills in the creative economy and industries; political economy and local economic development; circular economy and textile; sustainable urban development.

Expertise and public engagement

Marta has extensive experience of media and public engagement at the international level: she has appeared and her work has featured on the BBC, CNN, The Guardian, Semafor, CNBC, The Continent and more. She has chaired high level panels at the UN, the World Bank and has senior level experience in national and international governments. Marta has convened the Africa Europe Mayors' Dialogue.