About Riccardo Illy
Today, Ricardo Illy is Chairman of Polo del Gusto, the Gruppo illy holding company for their non-coffee businesses, with controlling interests in a number of world-class producers of chocolate, tea, wine, and confections. As a family, they have a passion for quality and for growth pursued the right way: this has led to rewarding investments in everything from Domori's legendary chocolates to Mastrojanni's magnificent wines.
He first joined illycaffè in 1977 to help reorganize the company’s commercial structure. In the 1980s, as the rest of the coffee industry proliferated thoughtlessly into blend after blend, he focused illycaffè on producing its flagship blend alone. This emphasis on quality over quantity has more than stood the test of time. During his tenure at illycaffè, he enhanced its sales network both in Italy and abroad and brought illy coffee into groceries as well as offices through single-serving coffee pods. He also headed illycaffè's marketing and communication efforts and redesigned the brand. In 1992, he became illycaffè's CEO.
The following year, he was elected mayor of Trieste, a position he held until 2001, when he was elected a member of Italy's Parliament. In 2003, he was elected President of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, a position he held until 2008. In 2004, he became President of the Assembly of European Regions, a forum of inter-regional cooperation. In addition to these roles, he held several other prestigious positions with governmental and business organizations across Italy and the EU as a whole.
He lectures regularly at business schools around the world, from Stanford in the United States to HEC in Paris to MIB in Trieste. He is the Academic Director at Italia Innovation, an organization which fosters research, education, and new ventures in the manufacturing economy with a humanistic approach. Since 2018, he has taught a course there on disruptive quality with an acceptance rate under 12% populated by students from MIT, Harvard, Stanford, NYU, Columbia, Yale, Princeton, Georgetown, and UPenn, as well as European universities such as the London School of Economics, Oxford, the Paris Institute of Political Studies, Bocconi University, and LUISS Guido Carli.
He lives in Italy with his wife and daughter. In his spare time, he enjoys skiing and sailing and even gives the occasional lesson.
