Luca di Montezemolo

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Luca Cordero di Montezemolo (born August 31, 1947) is an Italian businessman, president of Ferrari and chairman of FIAT; he is also president of Italian Confindustria and of FIEG.

[edit] Biography

Born in Bologna, Montezemolo studied at the University of Rome La Sapienza, earning a law degree in 1971, and went on to Columbia University in New York where he attended courses in international trade law in 1973 as a visiting student for a semester. Despite many erroneous reports on the web, Montezemolo was not enrolled in the Master of Laws program and does not hold a Masters degree from Columbia Law School. He drove briefly for the Lancia rally team, but upon graduating went to work for FIAT. In 1973 FIAT moved him to Ferrari, where he promptly became Enzo Ferrari's assistant and, in 1974, manager of the Scuderia. In 1975 Montezemolo was promoted out of Ferrari to be head of all FIAT racing activities, and in 1977 he advanced to become a senior manager of FIAT.

Throughout the 1980s, Montezemolo occupied a number of positions in the FIAT empire, including managing director of the Cinzano drinks company and director of the Itedi publishing company. In 1984 he managed the entry of the Azzurra yacht in the America's Cup, the first Italian yacht to enter the event. In 1985, he became manager of the committee which planned and put on the 1990 World Cup Italia.

In 1991, FIAT chairman Gianni Agnelli made Montezemolo president of Ferrari, which had been struggling since Enzo Ferrari's death; Montezemolo made it his personal goal to win the Formula One World Constructors Championship once again. During the 1990s di Montezemolo resurrected the Ferrari road car business from heavy debts into solid profit. He also took on the presidency of Maserati when Ferrari acquired it in 1997, until 2005.

Under Montezemolo, the Ferrari Formula One team won the World Drivers Championship in 2000, for the first time since 1979. The previous year, 1999, they had won the constructors championship for the first time since 1983.

On May 27, 2004, Montezemolo became president of Italian business lobby Confindustria; days later, following the death of Umberto Agnelli on May 28, he was named chairman of FIAT, Ferrari's mother company. He is also president of FIEG (Federazione Italiana Editori Giornali) and vice-president of the Bologna Football Club.

Montezemolo became involved in the controversy surrounding the 2005 United States Grand Prix when, on June 23, 2005, he condemned the FIA's requirement that a single set of tyres must last the full length of a race, blaming the circumstances which caused the disastrous race on the new rule rather than on Michelin, with whom Ferrari had formerly done business.^[1]

He is related to Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo, who became a cardinal in 2006.

In December 2006, BusinessF1 magazine accused Montezemolo of being responsible for the ousting of seven-time F1 champion Michael Schumacher from the Ferrari F1 team^[2]. The magazine claimed Montezemolo was engaged in a bitter personal feud with Ferrari head of operations Jean Todt (now CEO).