Giulia
D'Arienzo

Giulia’s fascination with healthcare policy started early — and never really let go. With a sharp eye for detail and genuine curiosity about how policy shapes people’s lives, she has spent her (still young) career exploring healthcare from every possible angle: national, regional, industry and advocacy. 

She began by putting the Italian National Health Service under the microscope for her master’s thesis on healthcare resilience, combining qualitative and quantitative research. But she wanted to see the machine from the inside too — so she joined Johnson & Johnson to work on PFAS compliance, joining an international, cross-functional team that showed her just how far a policy decision can travel before it reaches a shelf. 

Never one to settle for just one side of the story, Giulia then swapped seats — trading industry for advocacy through a traineeship in Lobbying and Public Affairs at a healthcare non-profit in Italy. There, she found herself face to face with AIFA, the Regions, the Government and the Ministry of Health, building a front-row understanding of how healthcare decisions actually get made. Cardiovascular disease, oncology, rare diseases, the Biotech Act, PNRR — across these areas of healthcare policy in Italy, Giulia was often in the room, and sometimes helping organize it. 

At Acumen, as a Trainee, she now contributes to key EU healthcare policy files — the Biotech Act, HTA and Pharma Package — bringing both an industry insider’s instinct and an advocate’s perspective to the table. 

Giulia holds a Bachelor’s in Global Management and Politics from LUISS University in Rome, with Erasmus stints in Prague and Madrid that left her fluent in four languages — Italian, English, Spanish and French.