Mariano Votta is the Director of Active Citizenship Network (ACN), the international branch of the Italian NGO Cittadinanzattiva, where he is responsible for European Affairs.
Passionate about healthcare and consumer issues, he has more than 20 years of experience in the field of advocacy, stakeholder engagement, European projects, communication and civic information.
Mariano has led CAN’s advocacy activities at the European Institutions, which led in 2015 to the opening of a representative office in Brussels and to the launch of the MEP Interest Group “European Patients’ Rights & Cross-Border Healthcare”. In 2016, Mariano won the Efhre International University Excellence Awards on patients’ rights.
Mariano represents Cittadinanzattiva/Active Citizenship Network abroad with the European Commission DG Health, DG Consumers, DG Move, DG Migration and Home Affairs, DG Employment, social affairs & inclusion, in the framework of the European Joint Action on Vaccination (EU-JAV), European Joint Action on Antimicrobial Resistance and HealthCare-Associated Infections (EU-JAMRAI) and with all the other stakeholders.
He is in the Board/Executive Committee of Cittadinanzattiva (since 2013), Pain Alliance Europe (since 2014), Societal Impact of Pain (since 2016), Health First Europe (since 2017), European Movement in Italy (since 2018), Honorary Member of the European Association of Educational and Preventive Health in Epigenetics (since 2020). Since 2018 he is also Editorial Board Member of the international peer reviewed journal Advances in Health and Behavior. For the Italian magazine “L’Ambiente“, he writes his regular column “Attivi per l’ambiente”.
In 2016 he was appointed by the European Commission to represent Italian Consumer Associations in the European Consumer Consultative Group, and in 2017 he was appointed as Secretary General at the European Consumer Union-ECU.
Mariano Votta holds a graduate degree in Political Science and two post-graduate degrees in European Public Relations and Corporate Social Responsibility.
