Francesco Mengozzi was a virtual unknown in air transport when he was named managing director and chief executive of Alitalia in February 2001. However, he had a reputation for seeing through financial restructuring and privatisation within a range of Italy's state-owned companies.
Born in 1949 in Chiaravalle, Ancona, Mengozzi studied law in Rome before starting a career in financial services in 1972 with a Lazio regional bank. He joined Fincantieri, a shipping company, held by the giant state holding group IRI, and rose to head the financial services department. In 1984 he moved to Italstat and as director general had a first taste of selling off non-strategic subsidiaries. Italstat was merged in 1991 into Iritecna, the infrastructure arm of IRI. Mengozzi rose to become director general with responsibilities for handling sell-offs from the group.By 1995 that led to the setting up of Fintecna with Mengozzi eventually becoming managing director. Working with a portfolio of IRIholdings in construction, engineering, infrastructure and real estate, the aim was to reorganise the businesses and see them through to privatisation. During his time there, Fintencna successfully saw through the privatisation of the Italimpianti engineering business, began the process of selling construction companies and reorganised Gruppo Autostrade which runs Italy's freeways. He moved to become deputy director general of RAI, the Italian state broadcasting company, in 1996 heading up administration, finance and shareholdings in affiliates. Again, he quickly set about reorganising these subsidiaries along commercial lines and managed to see one business through to sale. Two years later Mengozzi became director general of Italy's State Railway Company, which is finally on the brink of breaking even. While there he handled the privatisation of the Grandi Statzioni, which holds the country's major railway stations.Source: Airline Business
