Antonio Cianci

Antonio Cianci is one of the key agents in the development of Italian entrepreneurship in the world.

He started his professional career in 1996 as the person in charge of the first Italian eGovernment project, designing and implementing, as a consultant of the Municipality of Milan, the website comune.milano.it. Then, after a 3-year stint as general manager of a service company, he worked on internationalisation projects for companies, launching a number of important projects with China and other Asian countries. His in-depth knowledge of China led him to publish the book “Investire in Cina” (“Invest in China”, Rubettino) in 2006 and the book “I caratteri cinesi” (“The Chinese characters”, De Agostini) in 2008, still one of the best-selling books on the etymology of Chinese characters in Italy. In 2001 he was appointed Innovation Advisor to Minister Lucio Stanca, a job that was renewed in 2008 by Minister Renato Brunetta.

From 2009 to 2012 he was in charge of the “Italia degli Innovatori” (“Italy of innovators”) project, which was awarded during the Shanghai Expo as the best governmental innovation support programme of the entire Expo, and cited by the Annuario of Treccani Encyclopedia as one of the most important events of 2010.

In 2011 he became a Kauffman Fellow. The Kauffman Fellowship is a training, networking and leadership development programme for venture capitalists. It is dedicated to the development of new high-tech companies with high growth potential and high impact. Kauffman Fellows are representatives of the world’s leading investment firms, with a combined invested capital in excess of $50 billion, connected through a network that spans all continents. After finishing his government assignment in 2012, he returned to the task of supporting Italian companies and financial institutions in attracting international capital. From 2013 to 2015 he supported the Italian Infrastructure Fund in fundraising activities, raising €240 million from the Chinese sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corporation and the South Korean sovereign wealth fund, National Pension Service (which was the largest Asian investment operation in Italy in 2015).

Since 2015 Antonio has also been CEO of AM Technology, the company that produces the technology Airlite, exporting the Airlite products all around the world.