The INSEAD Alumni Association-Italy is proud to celebrate the following professional accomplishments of our peers: Francesco Caio MBA’85D, has been named CEO of Poste Italiane SpA; Francesco Starace COL’05Dec, member of the INSEAD Italian Council, is now CEO of ENEL SpA; and Luca Valerio Camerano, AMP’05Jul became CEO at A2A SpA.
Here are a few highlights from their outstanding careers.
Francesco Caio MBA’85D, CEO and General Manager at Poste Italiane SpA
With a degree in electrical engineering from the Politecnico di Milano, Francesco Caio, has vast management experience, thanks to the many national and international professional challenges he has engaged in successfully.
His career began at Olivetti where, in 1994, he became CEO of Omnitel Pronto Italia, the first private mobile telephone company in Italy. In 1996 he returned to the parent company, where he became CEO of Olivetti.
In 1997, he moved to Merloni Elettrodomestici (today Indesit Company) as the company’s CEO. Together with other investors, in 2000 he established Netscalibur, BtoB IP Services (purchased in 2006 by Infracom) where he served as CEO. In March 2003, he was nominated CEO of Cable & Wireless and, under Francesco’s leadership, the English group arose from an extensive period of crisis, which had put its very existence at risk.
In 2007, he became President of the European Advisory Board at Lehman Brothers in Europe. From October 2008 to March 2011, he was Vice President of Investment Banking Europe at Nomura London. In 2011 he rose to become CEO of the Avio Group, a leader in the aerospace market and part of GE Aviation, with its branches in Italy and abroad, a turnover of €2.3 billion (2012) and about 4,700 employees.
Francesco also applied his talents to public roles: in 2008 and 2009 he consulted for the governments of Great Britain and Italy to define industrial policy for the development of wide-band telecommunication networks. Since 2013, he has served as a Commissioner for the Agenda Digitale Italiana.
In May 2014 he accepted the position of CEO and General Manager at Poste Italiane SpA, the largest service infrastructure in Italy. It supplies postal logistics, investment, payment, insurance and digital communication services to over 40 million customers, for a total revenue of €26.268 million (2013) and some 143,655 employees (annual average).
Luca Valerio Camerano AMP ’05Jul, CEO at A2A SpA
With an economics degree from LUISS Guido Carli University and an AMP from INSEAD, Luca began his professional career at Citigroup Investment & Corporate where, in 1991, he became Head of the firm’s Oil & Gas division. In 2000, he joined Camuzzi Gas and Pleani, one of the biggest Italian private utilities, where he assumed the position of Managing Director.
In 2003, he was nominated Managing Director of Enel Gas and became chief of Business and Microbusiness Gas and Electricity Unit and chief of Business Residential Gas Unit.
In 2006, he was appointed CEO of GDFSUEZ Energie SpA, a leader in natural gas and electricity sales and also member of GDFSUEZ Group’s CODIR leading the Business Development, Institutional Relationship and Communication areas.
In May 2014, he was nominated as CEO at A2A SpA.
A2A SpA is a multinational company that trades on the Milan Stock Exchange. Today the A2A Group is the second Italian electric operator with about 11 thousand Mw of installed capacity thanks to the recent acquisition of the majority of Edipower and is one of the main players in the environmental sector in Italy with approximately 2.5 million tons of waste treated of which over half is used for the production of electricity The company is also one of the major national district heating and gas operators with sales to end customers of 2,217 GWht in the district heating segment and over 2 billion cubic meters of gas distributed. With more than 12,563 employees (of whom 2,655 belonging to the EPCG Group), in 2012 the group achieved total revenues of €6.480 million.
Francesco Starace COL’05Dec, CEO and General Manager at ENEL SpA
Francesco combines extensive international experience, including tenures in the United States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bulgaria and Switzerland, with his degree in nuclear engineering from the Politecnico di Milano. These credentials have enabled him to take on roles of increased responsibility within the GE Group companies (later ABB) and at Alstom Powers Corporation.
At ENEL since 2000, he has served as Head of the Business Power Area within the Generation and Energy Management Division, before being promoted to Director of the Market Division. In 2008, he became CEO and General Manager at Enel Green Power, a position he held until May 2014, when he became the CEO of ENEL SpA.
ENEL SpA is a publicly traded multinational company operating in 40 countries on four continents, with more than 71,000 employees. It is Europe’s second listed utility by installed capacity. In 2013, it recorded a turnover of approximately €80.5 billion.
Knowing their high interest in all INSEAD’s activities, we are sure that Francesco Caio, Luca Valerio Camerano and Francesco Starace, notwithstanding the demanding commitments resulting from their new assignments, will find time to be interviewed about their outstanding professional careers, sharing their insights with readers in a future edition of INSEAD Magazine.
Once again, we offer our congratulations to these outstanding alumni for their contributions to society and to the prestige of INSEAD.
