Alessandro Profumo

Alessandro Profumo (born February 17 1957) is an Italian banker, the CEO of the Gruppo Unicredito, Italy's major banking group.

Profumo was born in Genoa as the youngest of five children and spent his childhood in Palermo, Sicily. In 1970 he moved to Milan with his family, where he attended the Liceo Manzoni. It was there that he met his future wife Sabina Ratti, who attended the same class, although the two of them did not start a relationship until Profumo's second year in university.

Profumo signed up for business management at the Università Bocconi. In 1977 he married Sabina; their only son Marco was born in the same year. Without a degree Profumo started working at Banco Lariano, for an initial salary of 377.000 lire. He stayed there for ten years; he was a branch office manager when he left.

In 1987 he graduated in business management within just a few months, writing his thesis at night after work. He left the banking activity in December the same year to enter the sector of business consulting. He was in McKinsey until 1989 and in "Bain, Cuneo e associati" from 1989 to 1991; his clients were financial enterprises. He went back to the world of credit in April 1991 when he became an important manager for Ras. In 1994 he passed to the "Credito Italiano", just one year after the banking group had been privatized. Here he became general director in 1995 and CEO in 1997. When the Gruppo Unicredito was born, in 1998, he became the leader of the new group.

Profumo is also vice president and board member of the "ABI", Italian Banking Association.

Sources

* "Il profumo dei soldi", L'espresso, June 5, 2008