John Elkann

John Philip Jacob Elkann (born 1 April 1976) is an Italian industrialist. In 1997, he became the chosen heir of his maternal grandfather Gianni Agnelli, following the death of Gianni's nephew Giovanni Alberto Agnelli, and since 2004 has been leading the Agnelli family, an Italian multi-industry business dynasty. The Agnelli family has been described in media as comparable to the Kennedy family in terms of prominence in national affairs.

Elkann chairs the automaker Stellantis and is the chief executive officer (CEO) of Exor, the holding company controlled by the Agnelli family, which also holds a controlling stake in Ferrari, CNH Industrial, Iveco Group, Juventus FC, and The Economist Group. In July 2018, he was appointed chairman of Ferrari, and briefly served as CEO from 2020 to 2021. In 2021, Elkann oversaw the merger between Fiat Chrysler and the PSA Group. He is the leader of a group that controls 14 brands, with production sites in 29 countries, employs 400,000 people, and is present in over 130 markets.

Born in New York City on 1 April 1976, Elkann held both Italian and U.S. citizenship; he renounced the latter in 2012. He is the eldest son of Alain Elkann, a New York-born journalist and writer of French-Jewish origin and Italian-Jewish background, and his Italian wife Margherita Agnelli. His parents divorced in 1981 and both have remarried. Elkann's maternal grandparents were the head of Fiat S.p.A., Gianni Agnelli, and the socialite Marella Agnelli (born Donna Marella Caracciolo di Castagneto); his great-grandfather was the industrialist Edoardo Agnelli, and his great-great-grandfather was Giovanni Agnelli, founder of Fiat S.p.A. His paternal great-grand-uncle was the banker Ettore Ovazza. He has a brother, Lapo Elkann, and a sister, Ginevra Elkann.

Elkann had attended primary school in both the United Kingdom, and Brazil, before his family moved to Paris, where he obtained a baccalauréat scientifique at the State School Lycée Victor-Duruy in 1994. Later that same year, he moved to Italy to attend the Polytechnic University of Turin, where he graduated with a degree in management engineering in 2000; his thesis was entirely dedicated to e-commerce and online auctions. Elkann has cited figures such as Gianluigi Gabetti, Sergio Marchionne, Warren Buffett, and the Wallenberg family as key influences on his education and early career. He is fluent in four languages: Italian, English, French, and Portuguese.

In December 1997, at the age of 21, he was selected as the heir of his grandfather Gianni Agnelli in place of Giovanni Alberto Agnelli, the son of Gianni's younger brother, Umberto Agnelli, who had died at the age of 33. He was appointed to the Fiat S.p.A. board that same year, when he was 22, the same age his grandfather Gianni also joined it in 1943, and to the board of Giovanni Agnelli Sapaz (now Giovanni Agnelli B.V.), the family partnership controlling Exor.

In 2000, after graduating in engineering from the Polytechnic University of Turin, he joined General Electric's Corporate Audit program. He left General Electric two years later; Elkann described his work at General Electric as "a beautiful experience, because you sit around a table where no one speaks your language and two out of three come from another continent." He moved back to Turin to be closer to his ageing grandfather, as well as to the family business. In 2003, Elkann joined IFIL, which later became Exor, where he was in charge of control and development, and was in particular responsible for supervising Rinascente and Alpitour. Elkann worked on the turnaround of Fiat Group. He was instrumental in the appointment of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) CEO Sergio Marchionne in May 2004.

After the death of Gianni Agnelli in 2003, which was followed by that of Elkann's great-uncle Umberto Agnelli in 2004, Elkann became vice-chairman of Fiat and vice-chairman of Giovanni Agnelli Sapaz. Franzo Grande Stevens and Gianluigi Gabetti were instrumental in the appointment of Elkann. In 2008, Elkann was seen as "the great unknown", and he replaced 83-year-old Gabetti as the head of IFIL, which managed a portfolio worth eight billion euros. In March 2009, he merged the holding companies IFI and IFIL to create Exor, stepping to the role of chairman. In 2010, he became chairman of Fiat S.p.A. (then FCA), succeeding Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, and chairman of the Giovanni Agnelli Sapaz, succeeding Gabetti; at the time, Fiat had changed four CEOs in three years. Before this appointment, he mainly played a background role at Fiat. The Financial Times characterized Elkann's appointment as "a confirmation of change that could prove to be the making of a new Fiat and also of the Agnelli family's future fortunes."

In February 2011, Elkann was appointed chairman and CEO of Exor. The value of the company's assets has grown and multiplied nine times in ten years. Since 2017, Elkann became chairman of Ferrari, GEDI Gruppo Editoriale, and the Giovanni Agnelli Foundation [it], a philanthropic institution supporting education. He is an active member of several non-profit organizations and think tanks engaged in the global geopolitical debate, one of the founders of the Collège des Ingénieurs Italia, and a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art. A member of the Confindustria presidential committee, he followed Fiat's decision to leave the group and resigned from his role as vice-chairman in October 2011, three months before Fiat's official departure in January 2012, "in the interests of the Association's autonomy and independence", as written in his resignation letter to then-president Emma Marcegaglia. In a 2013 interview to the Detroit Free Press, Elkann identified Bill Ford Jr. as a mentor. That same year, he was included by Fortune in the world's most influential managers under the age of 40.