Elserino Piol
The Foundation is named after Elserino Piol, a visionary manager in computing and telecommunications for over fifty years, an internet pioneer, and the father of venture capital in Italy.
Elserino Piol, originally from Belluno, dedicated his life to innovation, creating value for the companies he worked for or helped to create: Olivetti, the most valuable Italian high-tech industry, where he grew professionally over more than forty years in increasingly senior roles, tackling challenges with the innovation demanded by rapid technological changes and international market dynamics; Omnitel, born from his intuition about the opportunities offered by mobile technology; and numerous entrepreneurial and venture capital initiatives from Tiscali to Yoox.
A profound connoisseur of technologies, ingenious in intuiting their potential and industrial impacts and market implications, Elserino Piol was a significant figure in technological innovation in Italy for over fifty years.
Venture Capital and innovation in Italy
Elserino Piol played a pivotal role in bringing venture capital to Italy, financing new initiatives in the Internet and telecommunications sectors. As President of Pino Partecipazioni, a position he held until 2013, he financed many startups through the Kiwi I and Kiwi II investment funds, including Tiscali, Vitaminic, and Yoox.
From July 2006 to June 2015, Piol was President of Fedoweb, the Federation of Web Operators, and in 2016, he became its Honorary President. In this role, he followed and contributed to bringing innovation to the publishing world, identifying risks, challenges, and opportunities for information in the digital era.
In October 2000, he was awarded an honorary degree in Business Administration by the University of Bologna.
Elserino Piol passed away at the age of 91 on April 17, 2023.
The experience in Olivetti
Born in Valmorel, a hamlet of Limana in the province of Belluno, on December 8, 1931, Elserino Piol, graduated as an electronics technician, grew professionally in the most valuable high-tech industry in Italian history, Olivetti. He joined as a programmer at the age of 21 and left as Vice President in 1996. Throughout these years, Piol held increasingly important managerial positions in Olivetti, engaging in over forty years of challenges with the disruptive technological development and the dynamics of international ICT (Information Communication Technology) markets. A tenacious, gruff man with flashes of genius, lightning-fast in thought, with the arrival in Ivrea of engineer Carlo De Benedetti in the 1980s, he was appointed General Manager for Strategies and Development. He contributed in 1983 to the historic Olivetti and AT&T alliance, leading to a five-year period of great development in which Olivetti became the third-largest producer worldwide thanks to the supply of the PC M24 to AT&T. Also in the 1980s, he managed venture capital activities on behalf of Olivetti. In January 1992, he took on the role of Director of Operations for the Olivetti Group.
From 1987 to 1996, Piol was a member of Olivetti’s Board of Directors and Vice President from 1988 to 1996. During these years, he foresaw the importance of mobile technology communications, leading to the birth of Omnitel.