MARIA PIA SACCO
Executive Board Member
Areas of activity: Business & Human Rights, Human Rights Due Diligence, ESG and Sustainable Finance
Maria Pia currently works as Senior Adivsor at Pillar Two. She has worked as Senior Legal Advisor at the International Bar Association (IBA) Legal Policy & Research Unit where she managed the IBA’s policy, training and research projects on business and human rights and corporate integrity. In particular, she contributed to international consultations on the regulatory framework regarding business and human rights, including the European directive proposal on corporate sustainability due diligence; led research projects on company-based grievance mechanisms, modern slavery in global value chains and digital technologies and human rights; conducted training initiatives for the global legal profession on business and human rights and sustainability due diligence.
Most recently, she worked as Senior Legal Advisor at the Italian law firm, RP Legal & Tax, advising Italian and international corporate clients on ESG and business and human rights. Her work focused on the integration of sustainability standards (UN SDGs, OECD Guidelines for MNEs and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights) in corporate structures and global value chains through ethical codes, policies, contracts, stakeholder engagement, due diligence activities and company-based grievance mechanisms.
Maria Pia holds a PhD in Law and Economics from Erasmus University (Rotterdam), an LLM in Law and Economics from the University of Bologna, Hamburg University, and the Indira Ghandi Institute of Development Studies (Mumbai), and a Bachelor of Law with Distinction from LUISS Guido Carli (Rome). She is an officer of the IBA’s Business and Human Rights Committee and a board member of Human Rights International Corner, a non-governmental organisation specialised in business and human rights. Maria Pia authored numerous publications on corporate sustainability, business and human rights and modern slavery in global value chains.
Maria Pia is an Italian native speaker and she is fluent in English.