Giovanni Ferrero (; born 21 September 1964) is an Italian businessman. He assumed the leadership of the confectionery company

Ferrero SpA Ferrero SpA (), more commonly known as Ferrero Group or simply Ferrero, is an Italian multinational company with headquarters in Alba, Italy. manufacturer of branded chocolate and confectionery products, and the second biggest chocolate producer ...

after the death of his brother

Pietro Ferrero Pietro Ferrero (; 2 September 1898 – 2 March 1949) was the founder of Ferrero SpA, an Italian confectionery and chocolatier company. His company invented Nutella, a hazelnut-cream spread, which is now sold in over 160 countries. Ferrero Rocher ...

in 2011. As of October 2022, he has an estimated net worth of $37.6 billion making him the 28th richest in the world, and richest person in Italy.

Early life

He was born in

Farigliano Farigliano is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Cuneo in the Italian region Piedmont, located about southeast of Turin and about northeast of Cuneo. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 1,766 and an area of .All demographic ...

, Italy, the son of Maria Franca Fissolo and

Michele Ferrero Michele Ferrero (; 26 April 1925 – 14 February 2015) was an Italian billionaire businessman. He owned the chocolate manufacturer Ferrero SpA, Europe's second largest confectionery company (at the time of his death), which he developed from t ...

, the owner of the multinational confectionery corporation Ferrero. In 1975, he moved to

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

, Belgium, where he studied at the

European Schools The European Schools ( la, Schola Europaea) is an intergovernmental organisation, which has established, finances, and administers a small group of multilingual international schools, bearing the title "European School", which exist primarily t ...

. Then he moved to the US, where he studied marketing at

Lebanon Valley College Lebanon Valley College (LVC, Lebanon Valley, or The Valley) is a private college in Annville, Pennsylvania. History Lebanon Valley was founded on February 23, 1866, with classes beginning May 7 of that year and its first class graduating in 1870 ...

Career

On completing his studies, he returned to Europe to work in the family company. In 1997 he became joint CEO of Ferrero together with his brother Pietro. In April 2011, after the death of his brother in a bicycling accident in South Africa, he became the sole CEO of Ferrero Group. His father, Michele Ferrero, remained as executive chairman. Michele Ferrero died in 2015, leaving the company solely in Giovanni's hands. American business magazine ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

'' reported that Giovanni Ferrero then took over the role of executive chairman in 2015, and held both the titles of CEO and executive chairman for two years until he hired Lapo Civiletti to take over the company's CEO position in 2017.

Publications

* "Marketing progetto 2000. La gestione della complessità", 1990 * "Stelle di tenebra", Mondadori 1999 * "Campo Paradiso", Rizzoli 2007 * "Il canto delle farfalle", Rizzoli 2010

Personal life

Ferrero is married to Paola Rossi. They have two sons.

References

* 1964 births

Giovanni Giovanni may refer to: * Giovanni (name), an Italian male given name and surname * Giovanni (meteorology), a Web interface for users to analyze NASA's gridded data * ''Don Giovanni'', a 1787 opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, based on the legend of ...

Italian billionaires Italian businesspeople Living people People from Farigliano Alumni of the European Schools {{Italy-business-bio-stub