Francesco Profumo (born 3 May 1953) is an Italian engineer and academic who was Italy's Minister of Education from 16 November 2011 to 28 April 2013.

He has been president of the National Research Council (CNR) since August 2011 and had previously served as Chancellor of the Politecnico di Torino from 2005 to 2011.

[2] Profumo started his professional career in research and development at Ansaldo in Genova in 1978 and served there until 1984.

[3] On 13 August 2011, he succeeded Luciano Maiani as the president of the National Research Council (CNR).

[6] On May 18, 2015, he was appointed chairman of the board of INWIT, Infrastrutture Wireless Italiane S.p.A., a company of the Telecom Italia group.