Lapo Eduard Elkann (born October 7, 1977) is a New York-born Italian entrepreneur and grandson of Gianni Agnelli, the former controlling CEO and controlling shareholder of Fiat Automobiles and one of the richest men in modern Italian history. Elkann, who was a Fiat marketing manager and manager of brand promotion at Group Fiat, is currently president of LA Holding, Italia Independent and Independent Ideas.

Early life and family[edit]

Member of the famous Agnelli family, Elkann was born in New York City, the son of Countess Margherita Agnelli de Pahlen and the American-born Italian writer Alain Elkann. His father is Jewish and his mother is Catholic.^{[1] [2][3]} He is the brother of John Elkann, the current Chairman of Fiat and the Chairman and CEO of Exor, an investment company controlled by the Agnelli family, which owns Juventus F.C., Cushman & Wakefield.^[4] Elkann is a grandson of famous Fiat chairman and style icon Gianni Agnelli and the famous art collector, noblewoman, socialite and style icon Marella Agnelli, born Donna Marella Caracciolo di Castagneto, as daughter of Don Filippo Caracciolo, 8th Prince of Castagneto, 3rd Duke of Melito, and hereditary Patrician of Naples, and therefore member of the high Neapolitan nobility. He is also a nephew of Don Carlo Caracciolo, 9th Prince of Castagneto, 4th Duke of Melito, and hereditary Patrician of Naples, that founded Gruppo Editoriale L’Espresso - owner of the newspaper la Repubblica, the largest circulation Italian daily general-interest newspaper, one of Italy's leading publishing groups, being known as "the editor prince",^[5] referring to his aristocratic birth and elegant manner. Elkann is also a stepson of Russian nobleman Count Sergei de Pahlen.^[4] In addition to his brother, John, he has a sister, Ginevra Elkann, and five half-siblings by his mother's second marriage: Maria, Pierre, Sophia, Anna, and Tatiana.^[4] He is also a grand-nephew of Ettore Ovazza, of the Ovazza banking family. Elkann himself is also a descendant of the Ovazza banking family, through his grandmother, Carla Ovazza.^[6]

Career[edit]

In 2001, he worked as a personal assistant to Henry Kissinger. He was a marketing associate for Ferrari and Maserati. In 2003, he became Fiat's Director of Marketing. He coordinated the reinvention of classics like the Fiat Punto and Fiat 500. He received the America Award of the Italy-USA Foundation in 2011.^[7]

He then left the family group to create the first of his companies: Italia Independent, a lifestyle and clothing brand, featuring products conceived, developed, and produced in Italy.^[8] In 2007 he founded Independent Ideas, a communication and advertising agency.^[9]

In 2011, Lapo supported the development of the 500 by Gucci, a special edition of the car he relaunched years before, on which he worked along with Gucci's creative director, Frida Giannini.

Since 2011 he works as a consultant for Ferrari, for whom he runs the project Ferrari Tailor Made, launched together with Luca Cordero di Montezemolo to let Ferrari's clients customize their own supercar.^[8]

In June 2013 Lapo listed his company Italia Independent on the Milan Stock Exchange, Alternative Listing; the funds will be used to expand sales of his eyewear stock in Europe and Switzerland.^[10]

Awards and honors[edit]

Vanity Fair magazine listed him in its Best Dressed Hall of Fame of 2009. The magazine has previously named him on such lists. Nicknamed "Lapo of luxury" he was on the 2008 International Best Dressed List.^[11] He received the America Award of the Italy-USA Foundation in 2011.^{[citation needed]}

External links[edit]

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BOLOGNA — He is dressed in urban fatigues, but there will be no blending in for Lapo Elkann. There never really has been. Born into the all-powerful Agnelli family, the Italian version of the Kennedys in power, money and tragedy, he was one of their bright spots: a top executive at Fiat, with an idiosyncratic style, a kinetic charm and a publicly cultivated reputation as one of Italy's most enviable bachelors.

In October 2005 all that came to a very public end. He was found near death in a coma from a cocaine and heroin overdose, in the apartment of a 54-year-old transsexual prostitute named Patrizia. It was front-page news in every major newspaper — including the one owned by his family. When he awoke and was released from the hospital, he promptly left the country.

Now, he is back, in what has been a slow and meticulously managed return to Italy after an 18-month exile in America following the incident in Turin that nearly cost him his life and what seemed like an extremely charmed existence.

Ostensibly, his renewed visibility is to promote his new designer eyewear line, Italian-Independent. But another far more delicate campaign is at work here, the one to reconcile his image — and by extension that of his family — with his fellow countrymen.

Elkann, 29, is very clear, however, about one thing: He is not asking for anyone's forgiveness.

"I have never let down Italy and I never will," he said during a rare interview in the lobby of a hotel on the outskirts of Bologna. "I love my country and I owe a lot to my country, and in that sense whatever I can and will be able to do for my country I will do."

With his mane of red hair pulled back, Elkann spoke candidly on a range of subjects that include his new passion for design ("I am not yet even a decent designer, but I love it"), the mission statement of his new company ("My key goal is to make complexity become your simplicity") and why he currently prefers life in New York over Italy ("It doesn't allow you to be lazy").

But the task of reinserting himself into Italy will not be easy for Elkann. Apart from his own problems, he has the steep history of his family to contend with.

"I believe that in Italy there are two important things; one is the Vatican and the other is the Agnelli family," said Giancarlo Galli, who wrote a biography of Gianni Agnelli, Elkann's grandfather. "And in the same way Italians love and hate the Vatican they also love and hate the Agnellis," he said.

Gianni Agnelli is a near-mythic figure in Italy: A fabled industrialist who turned his families' automobile company into the most important company in Italy and one of the major European car builders. He was also a subtle, yet extremely powerful, behind-the- scenes political player for decades.

One potential liability for Elkann is his maverick streak. He has a disdain for convention and his unpredictability can flare up, as it did during the interview when he aired an extraordinary theory: that his overdose may have been part of a setup orchestrated by Luciano Moggi, the disgraced former head of Juventus who resigned last year and remains under investigation for his role in the game-fixing soccer scandal and with whom Elkann says he argued a week before the incident.

Juventus is owned by the Agnelli family. "Why was there a photographer already waiting at the hospital" when he arrived in the ambulance? he asked.

Elkann speaks in grandiose terms befitting someone of his pedigree but also emits an affected earnestness of someone who seems to be grasping for some acknowledgment that has long escaped his reach. He is sober now, but he smokes throughout the interview, at the end of which he openly admits that he is no saint. He blamed the strain of watching his family company pass through an especially difficult period for the events of the now infamous evening.

"I am an obsessive personality," he said. "And if you are an obsessive personality you need to be aware of it and be able to drive it with success. There are moments in your life when you are driving it well but you shift and you shift badly and you hurt yourself. It's like a car accident; we all have crashes, and I was very lucky not to die in that crash."

But this is not simply about Elkann's fall from grace nor his graceful return to the covers of fashion magazines. It is the freshly inked chapter in the saga of the Agnelli family and their role as Italy's unofficial royal family in the Italian psyche. Because of Fiat's historical importance to the Italian economy (at one point controlling 4.4 percent of Italy's gross domestic product) the government has, at times, stepped in to underwrite the carmaker, which has not endeared the family to some Italians.

The Agnellis have also been soaked in drama and tragedy, including drug overdoses, divorces, abrupt deaths, suicides and internal power struggles. And there has been no shortage of schadenfreude over Elkann's incident. He is currently being parodied as a character on a popular Italian skit comedy show.

But Elkann also knows a thing or two about image control. He previously served as worldwide director of brand promotion for Fiat and was credited with rejuvenating the brand by splashing the Fiat trademark across sweatshirts, wine bottles, watches, luggage and chocolate. Whether on the covers of tabloids or business journals, he was the public face of Fiat.

Elkann repeatedly notes that life is a long journey — "a marathon" — and he has a message for his enemies: He intends to be waiting for them at the finish line, with a smile on his face.

"In America, if you succeed you don't have to apologize," said Elkann. "In Italy success is envied, and envy is the worst, worst, worst thing in the world. It's easy for me to say because I have had more than many others, but at the end of the day I have never envied anyone. I wish to no one that they waste their time envying anyone else."

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(ANSA) - Milan, March 10 - Two more people were arrested Tuesday for allegedly blackmailing businessman Lapo Elkann, brother of Fiat President John Elkann, with a video reportedly showing him with lines of cocaine.

Photographer Fabrizio 'Bicio' Pensa and Giovanni Bellavista, the brother of a waiter already being tried in the case, Enrico Bellavista, were taken into custody by Milan police.

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