Sandro Salsano

Sandro Salsano, businessman and investor. Picture from WEF website

Sandro Salsano (born September 25, 1979 in Lecco Italy) is an Italian self-made entrepreneur, businessman and investor. He is the Chairman of Salsano Family Office ^[1]^[2]^[3] and CEO of Salsano Group. The group has investments in financials, global real estate, luxury, private equity, venture capital and technology. He is also the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Salsano Shahani Foundation.^[4] He is a founding partner of Columbus Frontiers, an Investment Management company regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority with offices in London, Madrid, Panama ^[5] and Curaçao and he sits on the Board of a number of companies.^[6]

Early life

Born in Lecco, Italy, he grew up in Southern Italy (Campania) where he was a professional basketball player until he decided to move to Milan to study at Bocconi University.

Education

Salsano graduated from Bocconi University in Milan with full honors with an MBA Exchange program from the University of San Diego, California, an Executive program from Harvard Business School and a Leadership program from INCAE Business School. ^[7] He speaks english, italian, portuguese, french, spanish and russian.

Early Business Ventures

His first job was at Scottish Widows Investment Partnership in London. He later became a shareholder and partner in an investment bank in former Soviet Union, he sold his shares after Goldman Sachs acquired a stake and he set up his family office. He co-founded what became one of the largest factoring companies for exporters to Central America and the Caribbean.

Investments

Salsano Group of Companies comprises over 20 companies with stakes in financials (www.cf-im.com), transmedia and entertainment (www.herotainment.com), technology (www.breathometer.com, www.life360.com, www.cloudtags.com, www.try.com, www.getagapp.com, www.youbetme.com), microRNA detection (www.miroculus.com), luxury mobiles (www.savelli-geneve.com), global consumer (www.tpresso.com), music (www.zendaya.com) and global real estate (hospitality, industrial, residential, commercial, retail, parking, land)

Awards and achievements

Salsano has been honoured by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader in 2014 ^[8] This honor is bestowed by the World Economic Forum each year to recognize the most distinguished and inspiring leaders under the age of 40. Selection Committee is headed by Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Past Young Global Leaders from around the world include Mark Zuckerberg, Founder & CEO of Facebook Inc, Larry Page, Co-Founder & CEO, Google; Sergey Brin, Co-Founder/President, Google, Marissa Mayer, Chief Executive Officer, Yahoo, Andrew R. Sorkin, Columnist, The New York Times, David Cameron, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Elon Musk, Chairman, Tesla Motors, Aerin Lauder, SVP, Estée Lauder, Aditya Mittal, Rahul Gandhi, Queen Mathilde of Belgium, Queen of Belgium, Mary Crown Princess of Denmark, Mandla Mandela, member of the Parliament of the South African National Congress, Chelsea Clinton, Wyclef Jean, Steffi Graf, Ian Thorpe and Mia Hamm.^[9]

He is often featured on several medias like CNBC,^[10] FT, Bloomberg, IlSole24ore, Corriere della Sera.

He was regarded as one of the top 50 business leaders in Latin America.

Philanthropy

He has donated among others to the William J. Clinton Foundation.,^[11] Raisa Gorbachev Foundation, Amfar, Olga Sinclair Foundation, Nuestro Pequenos Hermanos. He set up Salsano Shahani foundation with his wife Johanna Shahani (www.gruposhahani.com) to improve kids education in Panama.^[12]

Personal life

Sandro Salsano is an astronaut passenger with Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic and he will enter space on board SpaceShipTwo. Other austronauts include Angelina Jolie, Philippe Stark, Ashton Kutcher, Paris Hilton, Justin Bieber and Leonardo Dicaprio ^[13]^[14] He has travelled to more than 100 countries (among those North Korea, Greenland, Tibet, Cuba, Iran, Ukraine, Tanzania)