The Portland Profile is back for 2025, and this month it features Giandomenico Di Girolamo from Portland’s International Development Team.
What is your favourite part about your role?
My favourite part of the role has to be the variety of work we get to do on the International Team. Since I joined Portland, I’ve been able to work with clients from all around the world, across multiple time zones and in multiple languages. This has allowed me to learn things I never expected to learn, exposed me to diverse perspectives and opened up new areas of interest.
What has been your favourite experience at Portland so far?
This is hard to answer because I’ve been able to work on several interesting projects from UNCCD COP16, to the launch of the Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance paper, but if I have to pick one, I would say the work we did with the City of Paris for the 2024 Olympic Games. Aside from the privilege of working on something I would normally follow and watch for fun; it was also an incredible learning experience as we were able to build relationships with journalists from all over the world. Both the lead up, and the games themselves were incredibly fun to work on.
What is your area of expertise?
Throughout my time at Portland, I’ve tried to expose myself to as much of the business as possible, and I’ve been really lucky to be able to work across many different sectors and subject areas, including sport, multilateral negotiations, energy, global health and climate. However, I have started to specialise in working with international organisations, and organisations involved in climate and sustainability.
What do you do to switch off from work?
Outside of work I am a massive fan of SSC Napoli, though as many will know that can be much more stressful than going to work. I also try to play football when I can and go to the cinema as much as possible. Over the past few years, I have also become a huge consumer of podcasts – especially if they are about history, politics or football.
What is something that not many people know about you?
I went to High School in Nicaragua and Panama; living there was a fantastic experience and to this day I have a great deal of affection for both places.
