18 May, 9:30 – 18:45

Preside della Facoltà di Scienze Bancarie, Finanziarie e Assicurative Università Cattolica

Elena Beccalli is dean of the School of banking, finance and insurance at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan), and full professor of banking at the same School. She is research associate at the Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation of the London School of Economics, and academic fellow at the Centre for Responsible Banking and Finance of the University of St. Andrews. She has been visiting professor at the Singapore Institute of Management and at the Pecking University. She is chairwoman of the Italian branch of European Society for Banking and Financial Law (AEDBF), and member of the Directive committee of Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA). She serves as journal manager of Journal of financial management, markets and institutions (JFMI). She has published extensively (books and articles) on several subjects related to banking. She has a ten-year experience as independent non-executive board member and chairwoman of board committees of Italian listed banks and asset management companies.

Co-Founder & Co-CEO Planet Farms

Born and raised in Milan, Daniele achieved a BSc in Economics cum laude at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Since 2002, Daniele has been living in London, where he worked for ten years for Goldman Sachs in private equity and then at the head of the bank's internal hedge fund. After starting his own business and managing his hedge fund, Benros Capital, Daniele ran the European business of Halcyon Asset Management. Daniele has been an angel investor for years, focused mainly on companies in the technology and consumer products spaces. This passion culminated in his decision to join forces with Luca, a childhood friend, and create Planet Farms.

Senior Fellow of Global Health Johns Hopkins University

Senior Fellow of Global Health at Johns Hopkins University, Ilaria Capua has directed Italian and international research laboratories and developed the concept of Circular Health. Member of the European Academy of Sciences, she is the author of books for adults and children and a columnist for Corriere della Sera. Among the most authoritative Italian scientists at international level, Ilaria Capua has directed research groups in Italy and abroad for over thirty years, dedicating herself to viral infections that are transmittable from animals to humans, and their pandemic potential. She pioneered open access science applied to pandemic preparedness, designing and laying the foundations for the development of a platform for sharing virus genetic data to accelerate and optimise the response to pandemic emergencies. This initiative – taken up by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal – overturned the existing paradigm and today, because of it, millions of Sars-CoV-2 sequences are available in publicly accessible databases. Appointed Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Republic in 2012, from 2013 to 2016 she was a member of the Italian Parliament at the invitation of the then Prime Minister Mario Monti. From 2016 to 2023 she directed the "One Health" centre of excellence at the University of Florida, where she developed the concept of Circular Health that promotes the advancement of health as an integrated system through interdisciplinary approaches. She is also an essayist and author of highly successful books including Io, trafficante di virus (Virus Trader) (Rizzoli, 2017), Salute Circolare (Circular Health) (Egea, 2019), Il Dopo. Il virus che ci ha costretto a cambiare mappa mentale (The Aftermath. The virus that forced us to change mind maps) (Mondadori, 2020), La meraviglia e la trasformazione (Wonder and transformation) (Mondadori, 2021), Il coraggio di non avere paura (The courage of not being afraid) (Solferino, 2022). She has also written books for children, including: Ti conosco mascherina (I know you, facemask) (La Coccinella, 2020), Il viaggio segreto dei virus (The secret journey of viruses) (De Agostini, 2021), Girogirotondo è uno il mondo (Ring-a-ring-o’ roses, there’s only one world (La Coccinella, 2021). A number of documentaries have been made based on her professional career, and in 2021 the film "Io trafficante di virus" (Virus Trader) starring Anna Foglietta. She has received countless awards, including in 2008 the Scientific American 50 Award, awarded to the world’s top 50 researchers, and in 2021 the Hypatia Prize for Life Sciences awarded from the European Academy of Sciences. In 2023, she was awarded an Honorary Master's Degree in Med

CEO of Feltrinelli Group

Chief Executive Officer of the Feltrinelli Group since January 2022, for the previous seven years she held the position of CEO of Agnona, part of the industrial textile group Ermenegildo Zegna. Before that, she was Chairman and CEO of Emilio Pucci (LVMH group) for three years, and Senior Vice President Luxury Brands Europe and CEO South Europe of Ralph Lauren for eight years. Previously, she worked in top roles in Valentino and Levi Strauss. After graduating in Economics from the University of Bologna, she began her career in the strategic consulting firm McKinsey in Milan.

Researcher, Entrepreneur and Activist

John Henry Clippinger was a founding Director of the Open Earth Foundation, and co-founder of Bioform Labs. He was a co-founder of The Token Commons Foundation and Swytch, now ClearTrace Inc., and the Institute for Data Driven Design (ID3) with Professor Sandy Pentland. He was a Research Scientist at the MIT Media Lab Human Dynamics Group, and currently a Research Affiliate at the City Science Group. Formerly, he was a Senior Fellow and Co-Director of The Law Lab at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard Law School. He was the Co-founder and CEO of four AI and NLP companies and Director of Intellectual Capital at Coopers & Lybrand, now PWC. Dr. Clippinger is co-editor From Bitcoin to Burning Man and Beyond; The Quest for Identity and Autonomy in Digital Society, the author of A Crowd of One: The Future of Individual Identity, and the Biology of Business. (He has been a member of the World Economic Forum Global Advisory Council, Santa Fe Institute, Aspen Institute, Highlands Forum, Institute for the Future, Yale CEO Summit, Dubai Futures Forum, Aspen Italia, TII/Vanguard, Kinnernet, DLD, and others. Dr. Clippinger is a graduate of Yale University and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. His recent Boards and Advisories: Open Earth Foundation
Active Inference Labs
Raise Green
Swytch/ClearTrace
Cashaa
Bancor
Evident Proof
Smart Valor
Decentralized Pictures
Co-Makery
OVR

Partner & Co-founder Astanor Ventures

Vice-Chair EMEA General Atlantic

Vittorio Colao is Vice Chairman EMEA of Growth Equity investor General Atlantic, a non Executive Director of Verizon Communications in the US and a Board, Executive Commitee member and Chair of the International Advisory Council of Bocconi University in Milan. Vittorio has been Minister for Technology Innovation and Digital transition as well as Delegate authority for Space for the Italian Government in 2021-22. Prior to that he was also Chairman of the Remuneration Committee of Unilever PLC. Vittorio has been the CEO of Vodafone Group from 2008 to 2018. He has worked at Vodafone and predecessor companies since 1996 and has been also the Group CEO of RCS MediaGroup in Italy between 2004 and 2006. He served as Vice-Chairman of the European Roundtable of Industrialists until 2018 and McKinsey’s International advisory council. Vittorio started his career as a consultant at McKinsey, where he was made a partner in 1995. In his early career he served as NED on the Boards of Finmeccanica (Leonardo) and RAS (Allianz Italy). He chairs since 2008 the advisory Board of Cometa (charity dedicated to children) in Como, Italy. He has served as an Advisor to the MedTech degree of Humanitas-Politecnico in Milan. In 2014 Vittorio was awarded Italy’s Knighthood of the Order of Labor and in 2021 the Grande Ufficiale honor from the President of Italy. He has also been appointed He4She Impact champion (UN, 2015), won the GSMA award for Refugees support (2017), and recognized FT HERoes champion (2017). Trained as a Carabinieri Officer at the Mountain Troops Military School in Italy, Vittorio is an avid cyclist and a retired windsurfer.

Professional Negotiator, Founder of NEST Group and CEO of NEST Consulting

Moty Cristal is the founder of NEST Group and the CEO of NEST Consulting. Following an illustrious career as one of Israel's leading negotiation experts, Cristal established NEST in order to bring a unique systemic approach to the world of negotiation and the benefit of his experience and success to the private and public sector. From 1994 to 2001, Mr. Cristal served in various official capacities in Israel's Prime Minister’s Office and MOD. Since 2001, he consults and trains senior executives and government officials in US, Europe, Russia and CIS and Asia in analyzing, planning and designing complex negotiation and crisis management processes. Mr. Cristal is a Lt. Colonel (R.) in the IDF, with extensive operational experience in crisis negotiation, and lectures worldwide on crisis negotiation and crisis management. In recent years, he expanded this skills set to deal with crises in the cyber world and negotiating with cyber criminals in various ransomware and extortion situations. Mr. Cristal provides his services independently or as part of Incident Response (IR) teams, cyber intelligence companies, and legal firms throughout the world. As a Professor for Negotiation Dynamics at SKOLKOVO, Moscow's leading Business School, he established the Center of Negotiation and Network Studies. He is a lecturer at the leading Executive MBA programs at Tel Aviv and Reichman Universities in Israel. Mr. Cristal commentates and writes regularly on the international media, present at international conferences and in academic publications on negotiation processes and crisis interventions. Graduated Bar-Ilan Law School in Israel (1994), and Harvard Kennedy School of Government (1998), he served as board member of the International Association of Conflict Management, and a Steering Committee member of the prestigious PIN Group (Processes in International Negotiations).

Founder and Managing Director of The Fintech Investment Club

Lital has more than 15 years of global experience in investment banking and alternative investments. She is the founder and managing director of The Fintech Investment Club, a limited exclusive investment invitation-only club which creates a lucrative investment community by bringing together the top venture capital and private equity funds as co-investors. She served as CEO of the IHFA -The Israel Hedge Funds Association, for over 5 years, representing the hedge fund industry ($16B of AUM), she now serves as a board member. She has a proven track record of successful collaboration with investors and fund managers and has created a global platform for multinationals in Israel. Lital is well connected in the local capital market as well as with government authorities. Previously, Lital was the general counsel of a publicly traded company and is currently the head of the Fintech Program of the Merage Institute in California, as well as a member of the Board of Directors of several companies. She is a member in good standing of the Israel Bar Association and holds an Executive MBA from Tel Aviv University.

Corriere della Sera

Head of Research at the Health Data Science Centre at Fondazione Human Technopole

Head of the Health Data Science Centre at the Human Technopole in Milan and Professor of Clinical Epidemiology at University of Cambridge, Emanuele works on big data analysis applied to the study of cardiometabolic diseases, blood donors, and risk prediction. After specialising in internal medicine in Rome, he obtained a Master’s degree in medical statistics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a PhD in epidemiology from the University of Cambridge. During his career, he has held senior positions at University of Cambridge, NHS Blood and Transplant, European Society of Cardiology, and World Health Organisation. He is the author of more than 250 studies published in prestigious journals, including Lancet, JAMA and New England Journal of Medicine.

Environmental explorer

Entrepreneur, Founder of Eataly

Oscar Farinetti (full name Natale Oscar Farinetti) was born on the 24th of September, during harvest time, in 1954, an excellent vintage for wine in Alba, the capital of the Langhe, by mother Bianca from Barolo, and father Paolo from Barbaresco. He lives on the tip of a hill, among his vineyards. He founded Unieuro (electronics) and then Eataly (food). At the end of 2020 he launched his third major project: Green Pea, a huge department store entirely dedicated to high quality and design non-food products, but at the same time sustainable because built in harmony with the earth, air and water. He owns several farms where he grows and processes organic products. He has received two Honoris Causa degrees, has written various successful books and holds lectures around the world. His specialty consists in being able to describe in a simple but suggestive way how to create a project, tell his idea of what marketing is and define the actions necessary to successfully face the future. Through an innovative vision that is based on rules and feelings, poetry and mathematics, moves and human relationships. Oscar donates all the revenues of his lectures to two non-profit foundations; the Mirafiore Foundation that deals with spreading literature among ordinary people, and Earth (Eataly Art House) that deals with spreading art among ordinary people.

Investor and Author of “The AI first company”

Ash launched Zetta Venture Partners - the first venture capital fund focused on Artificial Intelligence - with Mark Gorenberg and was a Managing Director there from 2015 to 2021. Before Zetta, Ash launched AngelList’s fundraising platform that now manages over $15B. Prior to AngelList, he co-founded Topguest (acquired), a loyalty software platform that counted United Airlines, Hilton Worldwide, and Virgin America as clients. He started his career in growth investing at Macquarie Capital in New York after studying law at the University of Sydney. Penguin Random House published his book, “The AI-First Company: How to Compete and Win with Artificial Intelligence”.

Chief Financial Officer Gruppo FS Italiane

Since September 2022, he has held the position of Chief Financial Officer of the Italian national railways company, Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane. Previously, from 2020 to 2022, he worked at Haier as Regional European Chief Financial Officer, also covering the role of CEO of Haier Europe Open Enterprise, a Venture Building company. During his time at Haier, he was also Chairman and Board Member of several companies in Spain, USA, Luxembourg, China, Russia and Italy. From 2019 to 2020, he held the position of Chief Audit Executive of the Terna Group, where he was also part of the Supervisory Body of Terna Rete Italia Spa and Terna Plus Srl. Prior to that, from 2016 to 2018 he was Chief Financial Officer EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) of Whirlpool, also serving on the Board of a number of the Group’s companies. From 2003 to 2016, he worked within the Enel Group, holding various managerial positions, including Group Purchasing Control Manager, Chief Financial Officer of Enel Green Power North America Inc., General Manager of Enel Finance International B.V., General Manager of Enel Investment Holding N.V., Chief Financial Officer of the listed PJSC Enel Russia and various positions on the boards of directors in the United States, Canada, Holland and Russia. From 1998 to 2003, he worked in consulting in Solving International and KPMG Advisory, specialising in projects related to logistics, purchasing and corporate turnarounds. Marco Fossataro graduated with honours in Economics and Business from La Sapienza University in Rome and obtained a Master in Business and Administration from Columbia University in New York and the London Business School in London (EMBA Global), as well as an Executive Leadership for Energy Certificate from Harvard.

Partner KPMG Head of Markets

Graduated in Economics of Institutions and Financial Markets at the "L. Bocconi" University of Milan, he joined KPMG in 1999 and became a Partner in 2008. Expert in the energy sector and in financial engineering and financial risk management, he has followed large companies in the energy sector and leading financial institutions in a career stretching almost 25 years. Today at KPMG he is the Partner responsible for the Markets area and coordinates projects with large clients.

Corriere della Sera

Author of critically acclaimed "Pursuit of Happiness", Entrepreneur

Author and Theater Actress

Performer, narrator, writer for the theatre, radio and television. Trained by Vittorio Gassman, she has worked with various artists including Marco Paolini, Laura Curino, Gabriele Vacis, Luciana Litizzetto, Alessio Bertallot, Fabrizio Bosso, Antonella Ruggiero, and many others. She works on the language and dialogue between different disciplines, in particular between scientific research and poetry. Her latest theatrical and radio works include Big Bang, Apocalypse, Ecce Homo, Furiosa Mente, Magnificat, and Anima Mundi. Virgin Mother received the Persephone award for best theatrical show on television. From Teatro Faraggiana in Novara (of which she is artistic director) during the first lockdown in 2020, she became the first artist in the world to livestream a complete performance of the 100 songs of the Divine Comedy, later broadcast on Rai 5 in 2021, and now available on Rai Play. She teaches storytelling and communication. She goes running or swimming every day (to keep fit but, above, all to be kinder). She has grey-green eyes.

Founder & President Pop AI (Popular Artificial Intelligence)

Fondatrice e presidente di Pop AI (Popular Artificial Intelligence). È membro del Direttivo di ADRA, l’Associazione europea su AI, Data e Robotics che lavora con la Commissione Europea per realizzare il piano di investimenti di Horizon Europe 2021-2027 (2.6 miliardi di euro) e costruire l’ecosistema europeo dell’intelligenza artificiale, i dati e la robotica. È membro del Direttivo di AIxIA, l’Associazione Italiana per l’Intelligenza Artificiale. È membro dell’Advisory Board di CLAIRE, la Confederazione dei Laboratori per la Ricerca in Intelligenza Artificiale in Europa. È membro del gruppo di esperti di intelligenza artificiale del Ministero dello Sviluppo Economico che ha elaborato la strategia nazionale italiana per l’intelligenza artificiale del MiSE.

Co-fondatore, CEO e General Partner di Milano Investment Partners SGR

Paolo started his career at Bain & Co., joining afterwards ACM (Angel Capital Management), a holding company founded by Angelo Moratti, where he joined the Board in 2008 and held the role of Investment Director working on investments in Venture Capital and growth equity; he then assumed the role of CEO leading all the main investment operations of the holding in Italy and abroad. In 2017, together with Angelo Moratti, he founded Milano Investment Partners SGR SpA, a management company specializing in Alternative Investment Funds in the equity / consumer- digital field, of which he is Chief Executive Officer and General Partner. As part of the first fund (MIP I), Paolo led the investments in Miscusi and Poke House. He was Adjunct Professor of Accounting / Financial Statement Analysis at Bocconi University. He is co-founder of the Octagon Capital multifamily office.

Award Winning Entrepreneur, Author and Founder of iFinance

Dr Ann Kaplan has a DBA, a Doctor of Business Administration, MBA, Masters of Business Administration, MSc, Masters of Science, and ICD.D, a Corporate Governance Designation. Kaplan also studied Spirituality at the PhD level. Following academic pursuits, Ann was recognized with the highest honor, a WIMA Award, as one of the top ten female graduates of the Rotman School of Management. Dr Kaplan founded a Company, iFinance, that provides consumers with small, unsecured loans at POS terminals and online. She implemented her predictive algorithms enhanced by AI and Machine Learning, then sold the Company in 2022. During her 25-year tenure with the Company, she won over 40 international and national awards including two national awards as EY Woman Entrepreneur of the Year. Dr Kaplan continues to stay involved in finance as a regular News commentator throughout North America. Not shy to media, Ann has hosted three national television shows and starred on the Real Housewives, she is currently slated to star in a docu-reality show largely based around her real estate investments. She currently owns and operates an insurance company, a large real estate portfolio and has her own fashion line. Ann is also a seven-times published author, she sits on three academic boards and committees and is a twelve-year delegate with the Ontario Economic Summit and twice co-chair in finance at the G20Y Summit in Geneva and is a motivation speaker on the public speaking circuit.

Libermans Co. Founders Product Science, Humanism. Ex-Directors of Product at Snapchat

David and Daniil Libermans are Los Angeles-based futurists, serial entrepreneurs, investors, ex-Snap directors of Product, founders of ProductScience.ai and Humanism Co. by Libermans Co. They were born in the Soviet Union, in a family of prominent molecular biophysicists whose work was at the cornerstone of the field. When they were 24 and 26 years old, they started their own VC firm. In 2009, together with their sisters, the siblings started a venture that had become an award-winning animation technology startup, Fastoon. Several years later the Libermans founded Kernel AR building advanced technologies for Avatars in AR, which was acquired by Snap Inc in October 2016. Today, David and Daniil Liberman with their sisters are founders of Libermans Co. — the first-ever company securitizing its founders' individual value creation potential. The main projects of Liberman Co. are Product Science (a service that maximizes app performance that has recently announced its USD 18 mln Series A funding round) and Humanism Co. (a first-of-its-kind VC firm working based on Libermans Co. model and offering equity investment in individuals' future financial output).

Director at Kilometro Rosso

Vicedirettore Corriere della Sera

Daniele Manca graduated in DAMS (Drama, Art and Music Studies) in Bologna at the Institute of Communication. He is an inaugural Fellow of the Sulzberger program at Columbia University School Of Journalism. He has worked in the main Italian newspapers and weeklies (from Mondo Economico to Panorama, from Italia Oggi to Il Giorno) and, since 1994, he has worked at Corriere della Sera where he started as an editor up to his current position as deputy director, columnist and head of the economy and innovation section. He has followed and organised coverage of major Italian economic and political events: from the stock market boom of '86 to Clean Hands, from the birth of the euro to the Fiat rescue and the European Central Bank, from the Maastricht Treaty to the Lisbon Treaty, from the crisis of 2008 to the birth of the Monti, Letta, Renzi, Gentiloni, Conte one, Conte two and finally Draghi governments. A renowned expert of the protagonists and events of the Italian economy and politics, he was one of the architects of the digital change at Corriere della Sera where, since 2009, he has been deputy director. Formerly an adjunct professor at the Master of Journalism Walter Tobagi State University of Milan, he held a course on ‘Journalism in the digital age’. He is strategic director and member of the Scientific Committee of the Master of Journalism of IULM. He is a member of the Scientific Committee Fuori Quota. He is a member of the Scientific Committee of 100 experts in the Economics and Finance field. He is Media Ambassador of ENWE (European Network for Women Excellence). He is a member of the Steering Committee of the Banca e Impresa 2030 Observatory. He was awarded the honour of Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic by President Sergio Mattarella for the promotion of culture.

Fondatore e CEO, Emotion Network

Mattia Mor is an entrepreneur and former Member of Italian Parliament. Graduated with honors from Bocconi University in Business Administration, he was first a strategic consultant at Value Partners, then at Bain&co, and since 2005 he has dedicated himself to entrepreneurship in the fashion sector, creating Blomor brand, leading it to sell in 30 countries of the world and 4.5 million in turnover. In 2015 he moved to Singapore where he worked as Senior Vice President for Lazada, the largest e-commerce company in South East Asia, active in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines, acquired in 2016 by the Alibaba Group for 1, 5 billion $. In 2016 he returned to Italy as Executive Director Europe of Mei.com, a site owned by the Alibaba Group specializing in luxury. In both cases he was involved in helping the internationalization of Italian and European fashion and design companies towards Asia through the development of digital technology. In 2017 he created the civic project #HoSceltoMilano, with the aim of combating the rhetoric of lamentation and decline and awakening the civic passion and sense of pride of Italians towards their cities and their country, whose videos has reached more than 3 million people. Elected in the Italian Parliament in 2018 with the Democratic Party, in September 2019 he moved to the Italia Viva Group. In 2018 he deposited the "StartAct" bill in the Chamber, with the aim of allowing Italy to recover the gap of private investments in start-ups and venture capital and thus amplify their ability to grow, innovate and create jobs, encouraging the return of Italian expatriates, encouraging them to realize their entrepreneurial dreams. In his political and parliamentary work he has mainly dealt with issues related to economic development, Made in Italy, technological innovation, culture. In 2020 he founded, together with other Italian and international entrepreneurs who love innovation and Made in Italy, Emotion Network, edtech & media company with the vision of bringing the human being and his emotions back to the center of development, producing great stories to inspire, educate and entertain. Emotion pursues its goals through audiovisual production (films and series, docu-films and docu-series, podcasts), the organization of the Tech.Emotion Summit, in which innovation, technology and business are combined with emotions, creativity and culture and through TechEmotion.com, the edutainment video streaming platform, to offer companies and individuals great stories to inspire, educate and entertain themselves, in the form of masterclasses, talks and inspirational audiovisual contents. Married with two children, he is a great lover of travel and Italian food, as well as cinema, politics and business.

Founder, Chairman and Anchor Investor, Milano Investment Partners Sgr

An entrepreneur, he has been involved in Venture Capital investments since 1996, when he founded the telecommunications company ePlanet (listed on the stock exchange in 2000) and, later, Sarlux, a company that built and operated a power plant. He is the founder of ACM (Angel Capital Management), a private investment company and family office. ACM is the majority shareholder of Milano Investment Partners SGR, a management company of Alternative Investment Funds, founded to support young visionary entrepreneurs not only in their search for capital but in the development of their project. A philanthropist and patron, he is vice president and executive committee member of Special Olympics International. He was formerly President of the Association of Friends of the Dino Ferrari Center, which is engaged in research for neurological diseases.

Corriere della Sera

Founder & CEO Social Capital, former Head of Growth of Facebook

Chamath is the founder and CEO of Social Capital, where he makes big bets on transformational ideas, technology, and people. Over his investment career, Chamath has managed a diverse multi-billion dollar portfolio, including externally managed funds as well as his own proprietary balance sheet. As a prolific investor, Chamath has honed an ability to repeatedly identify opportunities in technologies and markets before many of his peers. Social Capital’s early investments in space technology, artificial intelligence and machine learning, electrification, climate science, and blockchain applications have served as a signal to the rest of the market, resulting in meaningful follow-on capital, talent, and attention to its portfolio companies. It has also allowed the firm to generate consistently high returns across stages, sectors, and market conditions. Facebook Prior to founding Social Capital, Chamath was an early member of Facebook’s senior executive team from 2007 to 2011, during which time he led the development and launch of new platforms that drove the company’s global growth. Chamath is credited with creating and leading Facebook’s “growth” team, which at the time employed a novel approach using sophisticated data and analytics to underpin product decisions, a must-have discipline for any technology startup today. During this time, Chamath also became well known as a magnet for talent, scaling teams of hundreds and recruiting and helping develop, as their direct manager, several of Facebook’s core business leaders today, including Javier Olivan (Meta COO), Naomi Gleit (head of product and longest serving Meta employee), Alex Schultz (Meta CMO), and Ray Ko (early Growth team hire and current Partner at Social Capital since2013), among others. Early life and career Prior to Facebook, Chamath held roles as both an investor and operator. He was a Principal at The Mayfield Fund from 2005 to 2006. Prior to that, he was an executive at AOL, where he led the instant messaging business and was the youngest VP in the company’s history. Chamath began his career on the trading desk at BMO Nesbitt Burns as a derivatives trader. Born in Sri Lanka, Chamath immigrated to Canada at a young age where his family was granted refugee status. A product of public schools, he later graduated with a B.A.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo.

Founder & CEO of MINT

Andrea Pezzi, born in Ravenna on 21 November 1973, is a founding member and CEO of MINT (www.mint.ai). All-round innovator, from 1996 to 2006 he worked as an author and presenter for MTV, Mediaset and Rai, helping to revolutionise the language of Italian television. Since 2006, Andrea Pezzi has launched several entrepreneurial initiatives: in addition to OVO (sold in 2019 to an English publishing group), he founded GoalScout (sold in 2017 to the Chinese media group) and TheOutplay, a video platform still integrated into the MINT ambit. His most successful business project, MINT was founded in 2014 under the name Myntelligence and it has evolved over the years to become the world’s number one Advertising Resource Management (ARM) software solution. Created to automate the advertising buying process, MINT today is a global company operating in over 30 countries and, thanks to its artificial intelligence algorithms, it ensures better efficiency and effectiveness in the marketing of companies, also bringing greater governance, visibility and transparency to advertising spending. Andrea Pezzi is the author of four books, including Fuori programma (Unscheduled) (Ed. Bompiani) and Io sono (I am). Io Sono is also the name of the Association he founded in 2019 to reinforce the view of human life as defined by the great fathers of humanist culture. Since March 2023, the Andrea Pezzi Foundation continues, with increasing commitment, from where the Association had started.

Full Professor - Philosophy of Biological Sciences at University of Padua

Telmo Pievani (1970) is Full Professor at the Department of Biology, University of Padua, where he covers the first Italian chair of Philosophy of Biological Sciences since 2015. After Ph.D. researches in USA, he has been Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Milan Bicocca (2001-2012). Past President (2017-2019) of the Italian Society of Evolutionary Biology, he is Fellow of several academic Institutions and scientific societies. He is member of the editorial boards of Evolution: Education and Outreach, Evolutionary Biology, Rendiconti Lincei Sc. Fis. Nat., Nature Italy, Istituto Treccani, and the Italian edition of Scientific American. He is author of 322 publications, included several books: “Introduction to Philosophy of Biology” (Laterza, 2005); “The Theory of Evolution” (Il Mulino, 2010); “Born to Believe” (Codice Edizioni, 2008, with V. Girotto and G. Vallortigara); “The Unexpected Life” (Cortina Editore, 2011); “Homo sapiens. The Great History of Human Diversity” (Codice Edizioni, 2011, with L.L. Cavalli Sforza), “Introduction to Darwin” (Laterza, 2012); “The End of the World” (Il Mulino, 2012); “Freedom of migration” (Einaudi, 2016, with V. Calzolaio); “How we will be” (Codice Edizioni, 2016, with L. De Biase); “Imperfection. A natural history” (Cortina, 2019, MIT Press, 2022); “The Earth after us” (Contrasto, 2019; with F. Lanting’s photos), “Finitude” (Cortina, 2020); “Serendipity” (Cortina, 2021); “Nature is bigger than us” (Solferino, 2022). Fellow of the Scientific Board of science festivals in Italy, since 2014 he is fellow of the International Scientific Council of MUSE in Trento. He is Director of “Pikaia”, the Italian website dedicated to evolution (www.pikaia.eu). He is Director of the University of Padua web magazine, Il Bo LIVE (https://ilbolive.unipd.it). With Niles Eldredge, Ian Tattersall and Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, he curated International science exhibitions. Author of books for children and theatre scientific shows, he collaborates with RAI radio and TV projects, he is a columnist for Il Corriere della Sera, and the magazines Le Scienze and Micromega. Personal website: www.telmopievani.com

Journalist, SkyTG24

CEO of CDP Venture Capital SGR-Fondo Nazionale Innovazione

Corriere della Sera

Editorial Manager, L’Economia Corriere della Sera

Corriere della Sera

Founder & CEO iGenius

With a passion for computer science since he was a child (at the age of 13 he wrote his first gaming program), after two years at Apple he decided to set up iGenius in 2016, an Italian company based in Milan evolved from a fundamental idea: traditional Data Analytics and Business Intelligence systems have always been designed from the standpoint of the technology necessary to make them work and not from the needs of the people desiring to easily obtain management information. Data, instead, must and can be ‘humanised’. This belief has become reality thanks to Crystal, the virtual assistant based on Generative Artificial Intelligence at the service of corporate Business Intelligence. In a nutshell, a combination of ChatGPT and Siri that, in a matter of seconds, is able to provide information, splits and processing from the enormous quantity of data present in company databases. iGenius has been recognised by Gartner, a world leader in market research for the IT sector, as a Cool Vendor in Core Artificial Intelligence for creating the first Conversational Analytics system. In addition, iGenius has received awards at international tech events such as: Web Summit, TechCrunch Disrupt and Startup Grind.

CEO FSI SGR

Maurizio Tamagnini is Founder and CEO of FSI (2016). He was CEO of Fondo Strategico Italiano, which he directed since its inception. Previously, he was Head of Southern Europe for Corporate and Investment Banking for Bank of America Merrill Lynch and was a member of the EMEA Executive Committee. With over twenty years’ experience, he has overseen more than a hundred major finance, private equity, and debt and equity operations. As part of his professional career, he has worked in New York, London and Milan. He is Chairman of the Supervisory Board of STMicroelectronics N.V.. He graduated with an honours degree in International Monetary Economics from Bocconi University in Milan and completed postgraduate studies at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy (State of New York, USA).

CEO of Borsa Italiana (Euronext Group)

Fabrizio was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Borsa Italiana, part of the Euronext Group, in November 2021 and joined the Board of Directors of Euronext NV in May 2022. His appointment as CEO of Borsa Italiana coincided with his return to Italy, after spending more than 20 years in London. From 2014 to 2021 Fabrizio held the position of CEO of MTS, the leading electronic market in Europe for trading fixed income securities. Fabrizio spent the first years of his career in Bank of America in Milan and London, where he was part of the Treasury team responsible for trading government bonds. Before graduating in Economics and Finance at Bocconi University, Fabrizio served as a second lieutenant in the Carabinieri army.

PhD Nutrizionista Istituto Europeo di Oncologia

Researcher and Nutritionist at the Department of Experimental Oncology of the European Institute of Oncology in Milan. After graduating in Food Quality and Safety and in Food Science and Technology, she obtained a PhD in Food Biotechnology from the University of Milan. Her research activity focuses on the correlations between food and health, with particular attention to human nutrition, the epidemiology of nutrition and clinical intervention trials. She is also actively engaged in disseminating scientific knowledge on the topic of nutrition as a fundamental tool for the prevention of cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, obesity and cancer.

Founder & CEO of Thimus

Mario Ubiali was born in 1972 in a small town in Northern Italy. A Philosophy graduate at the University of Parma, with a Master Degree in Human Development and Sustainability at the Catholic University of Milan, he spent most of his life between academia and entrepreneurship. After having co-founded an enterprise specializing in the metal sector in 2002, he co-patented innovative technology with the National Research Council of Canada and brought the brand to international expansion, opening offices in the UK, USA and Canada. Eventually, he sold the business to a large global Group. In the process, he managed international R&D projects, including one of the highest ranking Horizon 2020 Projects of the 2014 Call. In 2016, fascinated with a new challenge, he founded Thimus, an innovative company with the ambition of becoming an impactful agent in food innovation and research, basing on cultural neuroscience. Thimus is an official partner of the Alt Meat Lab of UC Berkeley and a regular teaching and research collaborator of Bologna Business School, Bocconi University of Milan, Catholic University of Milan, ISAM (Almeria, Spain), McGill University (Montreal, CA). The company currently has offices and test kitchens in Italy, Canada, Hungary and Spain. On top of being the CEO of Thimus, Mario is an adjunct Professor of ecological transition education at the Catholic University of Milan and two times TEDx Speaker. He is also member of a workgroup on AI ethics promoted by the CTO of Lenovo in Italy and an advisor to Confindustria’s InnexHUB Center in Brescia, Italy.

Founding Partner and CEO of FNDR

James is Founder and CEO of FNDR, who work hand in hand with transformative founders, harnessing the power of narrative to give voice to their vision and shape their companies’ future. For over a decade, James worked alongside Steve Jobs building Apple’s narrative for ground-breaking products such as the iPod, iTunes, iPhone, App Store & iPad. He founded and was CEO of Apple’s global agency of record, Media Arts Lab and later went on to work directly with Brian Chesky at Airbnb to build the Trips Platform. Before then launching FNDR with his three Partners - helping to drive growth for over 140 founder-led businesses globally, including Evan Spiegel (Snap), Emily Weiss (Glossier), Patrick Spence (Sonos), José Neves (Farfetch), Sara Menker (Gro Intelligence), Jack Conte & Sam Yam (Patreon), Nicolas Julia (Sorare) and Alexandr Wang (Scale.ai) to name just a few. James is also the guest host of Fast Company’s ‘Most Innovative Companies’ podcast.

Co-founder of JAB Consumer Fund

Philip co-funded JAB Consumer Fund in 2013. He is a former VP at Blackstone Advisory Service in NY and a former Senior Consultant at BCG, specialized in FMCG and Financial Services. Philip has been board member of VC More Capital and is a board member of Stiftung Lichtblick and Ambassador of Epic Foundation. He has a Master of Business Administration at the Columbia University.

Advisor, Investor, former Airbnb VP of Product

Joe joined Airbnb as a software engineer when the company was just 9 people working in an apartment in San Francisco. He served as Airbnb’s Head of Product for several years. Joe also helped create Airbnb Experiences, the business unit focused on tours and activities. He led the effort to take Experiences from an idea on whiteboard to a business operating in over 1000 cities around the world. Joe left Airbnb after a decade and is now an advisor and investor residing in Bologna, Italy with his family. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Northwestern University and a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from Caltech.

Co-founder & CEO of Mulan Group

She spent most of her childhood trying to understand her identity – being of Chinese descent, raised in Italy and receiving an international education. When she was a child, she considered her diversity a weakness. She already spoke four languages, but she didn't feel she belonged to any of them. She has lived in Italy, New York, London and Shanghai and today she is the CEO of Mulan Group, a leading company in the Asian food sector in Italy. She has been described by Corriere della Sera, Il Sole24 ore and Fortune as one of the youngest and most influential entrepreneurs in Italy; in 2020, she was recognised by Forbes 30 Under 30 as one of the most influential talents in the Food & Drink industry.