Lapo Elkann

Lapo Edovard Elkann (born 7 October 1977) is an Italian businessman, philanthropist, and socialite.

He is the chairman, founder, and majority shareholder (53.37%) of the Italia Independent Group.

He is also the president and founder of Garage Italia Customs and Independent Ideas, as well as a member of the board of directors of Ferrari N.V. and responsible for the promotion of the Fiat Group brand.

He is the great-grandson of Fiat S.p.A. founder Giovanni Agnelli, the grandson of Gianni Agnelli, who is the former controlling CEO and controlling shareholder of Fiat Automobiles, and the brother of John Elkann.

As is tradition in the education of the offspring of the Agnelli family, Elkann began his career in 1994 as a metal worker on the assembly line of Piaggio in Pontedera under the pseudonym of Lapo Rossi.

During this period, he also participated in a strike action to demand an improvement of the uncomfortable working conditions in the assembly line.

In 2001, Elkann worked as a personal assistant to Henry Kissinger, who had just been appointed chairman of the 9/11 Commission and was an old friend of his grandfather, Gianni Agnelli.

He subsequently continued his work experience, which he started with different roles in Salomon Smith Barney and Danone, and worked as marketing associate for Ferrari and Maserati, where he spent four and a half years at the marketing office.

Following Agnelli's worsening health conditions, Elkann decided to return to Italy in 2002 to be close to him.

In 2003, he became Fiat's director of marketing.

Upon joining Fiat, Elkann asked to be able to take care of corporate promotion and communication, believing that the Fiat brand was suffering in this field, especially in the youth sector.

He promoted the group's image by launching different types of gadgets, including sweatshirts worn by himself, with the vintage logo of the car manufacturer, and the launch of the Fiat Grande Punto.

In 2004, the elder Elkann was described as serious and rigorous, in contrast to the expansive and creative younger Elkann, who was in charge of operational marketing at Fiat, where he went to work at the Mirafiori plant every morning driving a Fiat Panda rather than a Lancia Ypsilon, the model he personally helped to launch.

From their father, the two Elkanns share the Jewish faith, which represented the first time that young heirs brought with them values and ethics that were different from those of the Catholic Agnelli family.

In 2004, with the appointment of his brother John Elkann as the group's vice-chairman, he became responsible for promotion for the three brands: Fiat, Alfa Romeo, and Lancia.

In this period, he oversaw the worldwide launch of the new Fiat 500.

Elkann resigned from his position in 2005.

This came after he was being widely reported as having a serious cocainism and heroin addiction.

After a period of convalescence, Elkann returned to Italy in January 2007.

Along with Andrea Tessitore and Giovanni Accongiagioco, he founded Italia Independent, a company specializing in the production and sale of luxury eyewear, accessories, and clothing under the initials I–I, characterized by the possibility offered to the buyer to customize the product to be purchased.

The first product, presented at Pitti Men in January 2007, was an eyewear model made entirely of carbon fibre.

The company then developed a line of clothing, accessories, and with several collaborations in home and automotive decorations.

In addition to eyewear, also launched were jewellery, a watch, a bicycle, and skateboard for urban transport.

On 4 July 2007, Elkann founded the Independent Ideas creative agency together with Alberto Fusignani and Ivanmaria Vele, whose activity was documented for three months in the Idee in progress program of the satellite television channel Fox Life.

From 30 October 2007 to June 2008, he was honorary president of the Italian Volleyball League club Sparkling Volley Milano; he is an international ambassador for the Milan Triennale, an ambassador for Tel HaShomer Hospital in Tel Aviv, and a board member of various companies, such as the auction house Phillips.

Elkann and the Independent Ideas agency participated together with the Centro Stile Fiat and Frida Giannini in the "500 by Gucci" project, launched in Milan on 23 February 2011, and at the Geneva Motor Show on 1 March 2011.

In October 2011, he received the America Award from the Italy–USA Foundation.

A member of the Agnelli family and named after the 12th-century Italian poet Lapo Gianni, Elkann was born in New York City, the son of Countess Margherita Agnelli de Pahlen and the American-born Italian writer Alain Elkann.

His father is Jewish and his mother is Catholic.

He is the brother of John Elkann, the chairman of Fiat and the chairman and CEO of Exor, an investment company controlled by the Agnelli family, which also owns Juventus F.C. Elkann is a grandson of Fiat chairman Gianni Agnelli and Marella Agnelli.

He is nephew of Don Carlo Caracciolo, member of the House of Caracciolo, founder of Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso and owner of the newspaper la Repubblica, the Italian daily general-interest newspaper.

Elkann is also a stepson of a Russian nobleman, Count Sergei de Pahlen.

Elkann has a filmmaker sister, Ginevra Elkann, and five half-siblings by his mother's second marriage.

They are named: Maria, Pierre, Sophia, Anna, and Tatiana.

He is a great-grandnephew of Ettore Ovazza, of the Ovazza banking family, via his grandmother, Carla Ovazza.

In a discussion about his childhood with Silvia Toffanin, Elkann said: "I didn't love it very much. I was a dyslexic, hyperactive child, suffering from attention deficit, and since I was always behind at school, I wanted to prove that I was strong."

He graduated from the lycée et collège Victor-Duruy in Paris and from the European Business School London in international relations.

He performed military service in the Alpini corps as a soldier in the Alpine Brigade "Taurinense".

According to those who know him and his two-year older brother well, they spoke of many similarities, such as the attachment to the family and particularly the grandfather, but also of many differences.

The company was listed on the Milan Stock Exchange, on the AIM segment, on 28 June 2013.