Gregory Balestrero is the son of Christopher Emmanuel and Rose (Giolito) Balestrero. His father's arrest in a case of mistaken identity was the subject of a book by
Maxwell Anderson and of
Alfred Hitchcock's 1956 movie
The Wrong Man. In 1970 Gregory Balestrero earned a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from the
Georgia Institute of Technology. From 1994 to 2002, he served as executive director of the
Construction Specifications Institute (CSI), an organization for construction professionals in non-residential building construction, based in
Alexandria, Virginia, US. He previously held the position of executive director at the
Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE), headquartered in Norcross, Georgia, where he has been serving as acting executive director since 1987. Between 2002 and 2010 he was president and CEO of the
Project Management Institute. Balestrero served as the 2003-2004 board chairman of the
Greater Washington Society of Association Executives (GWSAE) and an active member and former president of the
Council of Engineering and Scientific Society Executives (CESSE). Balestrero also is a member of the Committee of 100, of the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He is a current member of the
American Society of Association Executives (ASAE), where he serves on the board of directors for ASAE’s Center for Association Leadership (CAL); the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE); and the
American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). In March 2012, Balestrero joined International Institute for Learning, where he serves as a Strategic Adviser for a new program addressing Corporate Consciousness, Leadership and Sustainability. == Project Management Institute ==