Vittorio has had 23 years’ experience as a senior executive (Managing Director, General Manager, Board Director) in large, medium and small farming companies, as well as in medium-sized food companies.
He has worked in Italy, Western and Eastern Europe, Africa, South America and Asia, carrying out appraisals and evaluations of enterprises, restructuring, business plan preparation, and rehabilitation projects.
Vittorio joined the TurnAround/Business Advisory Services Programme (TAM/BAS) of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in 1998. He has been responsible for about 100 TAM projects all over the Former Soviet Union, covering Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kosovo, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Moldova, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and the Russian Federation. He has also been Regional Director for BAS Programmes in Mongolia and Kosovo.
Vittorio has, since 1964, also carried out many rural development assignments in African countries, including Ethiopia, Tanzania, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Ivory Coast and Somalia. These covered projects in which he was an expert agro-economist, projects where he managed farms, and other projects on all aspects of farm development, including the creation of agricultural business for thousands of settlers in Ethiopia. During six years In Somalia, besides being in charge of a huge sugar cane plantation, he also had to deal with leaders of local communities for agreeing on matters of social interest, such as their own crops, manpower availability to the sugar estate, improvement of villages’ infrastructures and others.
He has also been involved in founding, organising, setting up, management and relationships with producers’ co-operatives and associations.
Vittorio has held Managing Director and executive board positions at several Italian companies, including L’Agricola d’Italia SpA, Milan, Azienda Agricola Torvis SpA, Ferruzzi Group, Ravenna, Torvis SpA, Ravenna, and Agrofina SpA, Rome. Additionally, he has served as non-executive director of many other organisations in the agriculture and agri-business sectors.
As an advisor and senior manager, Vittorio has assisted large and medium-sized farming companies covering sugar cane, cereals, oil crops, forage crops, tobacco, vegetables, fruit, vineyards, and wood production (poplar plantation). His agri-business projects have included dairy products, fruit, wine, pasta, meat, and animal food.
Vittorio has a Laurea in Scienze Agrarie (MSc in Agriculture) from the State University of Milan.
He is fluent in Italian (native language) and English, has a working knowledge of German and has basic Russian.