John Elkann

Born in New York City, John Elkann holds both Italian and American citizenship. He is the first son of Alain Elkann, a New York-born journalist and writer of French Jewish and Italian Jewish background,[2] and his then wife Italian Margherita Agnelli. His parents divorced in 1981 and both have remarried.[3][4] Elkann's maternal grandparents were the industrialist Gianni Agnelli and the Italian socialite Marella Agnelli (born Donna Marella Caracciolo di Castagneto). His paternal great-grand-uncle was the banker Ettore Ovazza.

He has a brother, Lapo, and a sister, Ginevra, as well as five half-siblings from his mother's second marriage, as Margherita Agnelli de Pahlen, to Serge de Pahlen. His younger half-siblings are: Maria (born 1983), Pierre (born 1986), twins Sophie and Anna (born 1988) and Tatiana (born 1990).[5][6][7]

Elkann attended primary school in the United Kingdom and Brazil,[8] before his family moved to Paris, where he obtained a baccalauréat scientifique at the State School Lycée Victor-Duruy in 1994.[9] Later the same year, he moved to Italy to attend the Politecnico di Torino (Turin), where he graduated with a degree in management engineering in 2000.[9] As a result of his international upbringing, he is fluent in four languages.[10]

While pursuing a degree in engineering, Elkann gained work experience through several internships: headlight plant in Birmingham, England (1996), production line in Tychy, Poland (1997), car dealership in Lille, France (1998) and also at GE's CIG (corporate initiatives group) where he worked on a thesis on e-auctions (1999).[11] In December 1997 Elkann was selected by his grandfather Gianni Agnelli to take the place in the family business of Giovanni Alberto Agnelli, the son of Gianni's younger brother, Umberto, who had died at the age of 33. He was appointed to the Fiat board at the age of 21.[12] In 2000, after graduating in Engineering from Politecnico di Torino, he joined General Electric's Corporate Audit program. He left General Electric two years later.[13] He moved back to Turin to be closer to his ageing grandfather, as well as be closer to the family business.[14]

In 2003 he joined IFIL (now Exor)[15] and worked on the turnaround of Fiat Group.

Elkann was instrumental in the appointment of FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne, in May 2004.[16]

After the deaths of his grandfather Gianni Agnelli in 2003, and his great-uncle Umberto Agnelli in 2004, Elkann became vice chairman of Fiat and vice chairman of Giovanni Agnelli Sapaz (now Giovanni Agnelli B.V.), the family partnership controlling EXOR.[17] In 2008,Elkann replaced 83-year-old Gianluigi Gabetti as the head of IFIL, which manages a portfolio worth eight billion euros.[18] In 2010, he became chairman of Fiat S.p.A. (now Fiat Chrysler Automobiles), succeeding Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, and chairman of the Giovanni Agnelli Sapaz, succeeding Gianluigi Gabetti. In February 2011, he was appointed chairman and CEO of EXOR.[19]

He is also Chairman of Ferrari,[20] Vice Chairman of GEDI Gruppo Editoriale S.p.a.[21] and a board member of The Economist Group and Partner Re.[22]

He is Chairman of the Agnelli Foundation, a philanthropic institution supporting education.[23]

In 2013 he was included by Fortune in the world's most influential managers under the age of 40.[24]

In June 2017, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Italian newspaper La Stampa, which was acquired by the Agnelli family in 1926, he organized "The Future of Newspapers",[25] an international conference attended by Jeff Bezos (The Washington Post), Lionel Barber (The Financial Times), Tsuneo Kita (Nikkei), Jessica Lessin (The Information), Gary Liu (South China Morning Post Publishers), John Micklethwait (Bloomberg News), Zanny Minton Beddoes (The Economist), Mark Thompson (The New York Times), Robert Thomson (NewsCorp) and others.

In February 2018 he featured as one of the protagonists on the podcast series by Reid Hoffman (Linkedin co-founder) Masters of Scale. In this interview he discussed the conditions which enable companies to last over centuries (using the metaphor of the "phoenix"), and described the case of Fiat, from the crisis of 2004 to the creation of the Fiat Chrysler.[26]

In 2019, Elkann announced he will be trying to merge Fiat Chrysler (FCA) with Renault, with the goal of forming the world's 4th largest OEM by volume and 3rd largest by revenues.[27] If the deal goes ahead, he will become the chairman of the merged FCA-Renault.[28]

In 2019, under Elkann's management, Exor purchased the controlling stake in GEDI Gruppo Editoriale from CIR Group for $113 million.[29]

In March 2020 John and FCA’s board of directors agreed to forego their remaining compensation for 2020 in an act of shared sacrifice brought on by the Coronavirus pandemic. [30]

Since 2009 has been attending the annual "media and tech conference" organized in July every year by Allen & Co at Sun Valley, Idaho.[39]

He is also a regular contributor to the Google Camp, which every year gathers tech entrepreneurs, investors, representatives of institutions and pop stars in Sciacca, Agrigento and other places around Sicily.[40]

In June 2018 he invited Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, Xavier Niel and other global tech leaders to the SEI Torino Forum for the international launch of the new School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation of Turin,[41] the initiative supported by the Agnelli Foundation helping university level students to start new businesses.[42]

In April 2019, along with CERN's Director-General Fabiola Gianotti and the Italian architect Renzo Piano, he participated in a media event to unveil Science Gateway, a new scientific education and outreach centre of CERN, which aims to share knowledge and technology with society.[43]

• Time Magazine Interview: All In The Family
• Business Week: Who'll Take Over from the Patriarchs?
• 2003 Global Influentias: With The Grace Of Grandpa