hi everyone I'm really lucky today because we've got John alen visiting.

John is the CEO of exor which is a Dutch holding company with Italian Roots they own things like Ferrari and through stantis they also have Brands like Fiat P Jeep and Maserati they also the largest owner of the economist group and they even have a football club called Juventus so pretty amazing all together in a fun we own shares worth 34 billion Groner a very warm welcome jump.

thank you for having me Nikolai and thank you for your trust uh with us and our companies.

now how do you look at exor as a company?

exor is a company that builds great companies with great people.

we try and do that by choosing the companies by committing ourselves as owners of these companies and aligning our ownership with the governance of these companies and the leadership of these companies.

you have some other groups worldwide who is trying to do the same you of course have Warren Buffett's uh B Hathaway you have the wenberg in Sweden just how would your philosophy be similar or different?

well those are very good examples um and very respected uh examples by us and and admired and both have have served as Role Models as both of them are owners of many companies engaged long-term thinkers and True Believers in in people and and Leadership.

how do you decide what to buy?

we end up really trying to reflect on sectors we're interested and most recently healthc care has really become the area of of focus that we've have at exor um.

and we'll come back to to um to many of these companies but you know you are um a really long-term um thinking group you own the football club for 100 years pretty much and uh few companies get really old I think um you have mentioned that only 45 out of a million companies survive for more than a century so why why why are you guys dealing business well.

what you need really to to think about is to last you need to renew yourself and make sure that what you do remains current and your your abilities as an organization as a company are ones that allow you to make sure that you are as current today as you were yesterday as you will be tomorrow and there's that real belief and fortitude that comes with it in in trying to make sure that what you are working on and what you're working for is enduring.

how do you make sure you stay current?

you you are always reminded in a competitive market Marketplace about what is happening by your customers by your competitors and being aware of what your customers want and and how your competitors are actually behaving is is what keeps you most alert on the other hand what is wonderful is also to be able to explore innovate and vent and and that is a big part of renewing ones themselves.

MH because you you you are particularly in in the industries in which we operate and some of our companies have over free centuries of existence and the most recently one is Phillips over that amount of time it is also based on new things new ideas and and inventions that become reality MH.

how important is the family ownership and family backing or commitment?

I think that a committed ownership is very important for an organization uh it provides that stability uh I believe that family controlled companies and and within uh the public markets are a very good combination between the stability that a family provides and the long-term thinking but being a public company the stimulus that you have by having investors um.

John your background is is uh pretty incredible you were put in charge of this group when you were 21 22.

I became a director at 21 in 1997 yeah.

do you just want to tell us about uh how this all came about because your grandfather was uh you know the legendary onelli and he kind of picked you just how how did this come about?

I always had uh very keen interest in um in in learning and learning about uh business and I studied engineering uh in Trin when I was 18 years old I I lived in multiple countries and as I started uh studying I also started working and spending more time with with my grandfather and and and his colleagues and being more and more involved with the company and he felt uh in 1997 um as we were approaching the Centennial in 1999 that it was important to have on the board uh a representation of the younger generation and he he appointed me as as the choice of continuing the commitment our family had with the company.

at 21 years old which by the way was the same age he joined the board of Fiat uh which was uh his grandfather my great great-grandfather the founder of Fiat that uh indicated him and and I think that it was partially symbolic to show commitment to a company that was turning a 100 years and in preparation for its Next Century but but also a great opportunity that he wanted to give me as he was observing that I had a keen interest in in learning and his advice which remains true to to this day was no one's going to expect nothing from you the important thing is for you to learn to listen and to ask questions.

what did he see in you what do you think were the traits that he admired in you?

I think that um my my grandfather uh was was someone who believed in uh in Freedom and that you can't force people in choices but you need to enable them in making sure that they can uh work to what their aspirations are and he generally felt as as also the envir his working environment uh that I I had real interest and real curiosity so that that is really at that point what he seen he was seeing and commitment I was studying and I was also working um and I was doing that because I truly enjoyed it not because it was forced on me and the combination of those two were were were were the definitely at that point um because at 21 years old you you cannot say you've achieved much.

you're now the biggest employer in Italy right you have 400,000 people working in your group how does that feel like a 21y old to be given that type of responsibility or or to know that you will get the responsibility at some stage?

responsibility is is something that you have yeah and uh I I've personally always felt responsible felt responsible um since a very very early age um as we we were growing up in many different countries and we had divorced parents and was very much very close to to my siblings and always tried to be responsible uh in in school settings Sports settings uh and taking on taking on responsibility was definitely something that uh I I always uh was drawn to.

one of the values we have at exor is courage and responsibility and difficulties are the moments in which you can show courage and you can show responsibility for for others and over the course of the more than 20 20 CL getting close to 30 years uh that I'm I've been involved as as a director of fied back in 1997 there have been many moments of time uh where that responsibility uh was was acted on.

how do they prepare you for taking on that responsibility what do they what kind of things do they expose you to who do they introduce you to?

my grandfather he would take me and also my my brother and my sister we we would be exposed to his life and to people he would be to he would be meeting uh what he liked to do is he'd have these phone calls which were professional work rated phone calls and we'd spend time with him as we were speaking then he'd take a phone call and he have that phone call but we couldn't really listen to what the other person was saying so we had to guess and then somehow we had these conversations after about what actually the other person was saying.

what type of people did he speak to?

it would be colleagues of his would be business partner would be uh would be different different persons with whom he he was uh working um and and that definitely was a a very formative way my family uh my grandfather were not imposing any form of apprentice apprenticeship uh that was more something I ended up uh wanting which is why I I started uh while I was studying apprenticeships.

and you mentioned yourself people like Sergio maon which is who's you know the phenomenal CEO in Italy so who have been the really instrumental people in forming you as a leader and thinker?

I was incredibly fortunate to have uh many people uh whom I worked with had wisdom and experiences um my grandfather's colleagues um John Luigi gabetti with whom he worked for many decades Serio with whom I worked for 14 years and and many many of my colleagues have been uh incredible particularly as as I started relatively young uh I was very fortunate to be able to work at a young age with people who had a lot of experience.

I will also say that I've always been uh trying to to learn uh from from others and spend time uh studying what other family controlled companies did and know the examples you men you mentioned of Burkshire hatway or investor have been role models and I was very fortunate to spend time with uh Mr Buffett in Omaha or with the wenberg family in Stockholm and and by asking and and also really genuinely uh being interested in in trying to see what that could apply to us and and equally also within the entrepreneurial world or the investment world uh my my life has allowed me to be able to interact with with many people who have who have been very helpful in in helping us become what what are.

at the same time you mentioned to me that you kind of want to reset as well right you want to have a clean slate you are you know the new start of a new uh generation how do you how do you think about that reset?

reset in our case the reset was imposed Nikolai it was imposed because when when I came uh and got more involved which was in 2003 2004 uh my grandfather passed away in 2003 my great uncle passed away in 2004 at that point uh I was in effect representing my family in in our business uh and those were times of big trouble and when you are going through those circumstances you forced into decisions.

how dire was the situation when you took over?

incredibly dire I mean if you look between the financial and operational difficulties that the company was facing back then the likelihood of us not making it were extremely high.

so what did you do we were because you you you you talk about the different faces that you've been through in EXO after you took over so what what's the first thing you do you come into that situation it doesn't look great uh what do you do?

we we ended up uh as a family uh investing in the company so we committed Capital which strengthened the balance sheet and renegotiated with with the banks that allowed us to have Headroom we were fortunate to appoint Sergio after having appointed four different cosos before within those two years who did not work and.

Sergio gave the company a a complete projection uh with a turnaround we worked on and the moment in which we launched the Fiat 500 in 2007 which is 50 years after it had launched being the first time was really a moment of uh where where we felt the company was was actually flourishing.

and that was just when the financial crisis was going to hit and and then we had the financial crisis and the financial crisis led us to America where we got involved with kryer and and kryer allowed to create Fiat kryer and also to start separating the different companies of the Fiat group who today are cnh which is a global leader in agriculture equipment IO one of the leaders in trucks and commercial vehicles and Ferrari which had a very different Destiny in terms of what it did versus a large car company.

in the midst of that we also simplified the group and we had different holding companies which we merged into one which was exor and we also started rethinking what we owned in trying to own less companies but more of these companies so if you look at the the decades and the first decade was really survival the second decade was stability and and and really trying to find the the right construct and the third decade which is the one we're in is the decade where we have been able to grow.

well an incredible U development um since you took over now when um when I look at the group uh you have really really strong companies with strong Brands so when what what kind of ties them together what do you think they have in common these companies?

the defining commonality of these companies is really through our ownership uh and we believe very much that the most effective uh way in which you can manage a company is a Founder let company and and that combines the ownership the governance and the leadership and we we have tried within our companies to make sure that that Clarity of of purpose is very much felt within all the companies in which we are we are involved.

now you put great CEOs in place what do you how do you define a great CEO?

I I've been very lucky to work and and and be working with great cosos and um for me a great Co is someone who's really interested in the job and not the title MH and who's really interested in competing in the pure sense of what it means and and really likes likes not only the company but likes the people with with whom he he works uh.

a a great CEO is also someone who has the ability of thinking longterm but also acting uh now being strategic but yet being operational.

how do you find them?

one of our values that defined for me well uh the leaders with whom we work is ambition and humility and in some ways I feel culture self- select and the the the ground in which and the environment in which we we operate is is one that self selects uh the the leaders that our companies have.

and the the opportunity have have really been that when you work with someone very good Sergio uh was leading uh SGS which was one of our companies and then the opportunity of taking over Fiat presented himself more recently uh Garrett uh was running IO and he's now been appointed to run cnh and and I feel that having the abilities of of creating also opportunities for talented leaders that we work with is has been one in in which we have uh made a lot of progress.

some grow up in the companies some come from outside uh benedetto uh whom you interviewed Nikolai who's running Ferrari came from a different industry from a different world yeah uh I was acting CEO of Ferrari for a year and and clearly uh clearly understood that ferar needed not someone from the car industry not someone from the luxury industry and Benedito has given Ferrari with with his enthusiasm and and also his experience uh something that was very needed for the company to look at building something new for this Century.

you also pay um your people very well and uh uh as you know we have voted against the pay package at stantis you know the car uh group because we think uh we think the pay package is is not correctly aligned with with our interest um just how do you look at executive pay is there such a thing as too high a pay package for you?

I believe that if if you are a high performing company which is what we aspire to be and if you compete within a competitive Marketplace to win uh what we believe is that we need to align our compensation with what our objectives are M and our compensations are variable compensations and these compensations are completely align with results so if we win as a company everyone who works in the company from the co to all all the different participants in the company are ones that benefit from it.

and if you look at 2023 where results of our companies have been good the the overall compensation the variable compensation has been very rewarding for everyone so we believe that what is important is to be clear with your objectives in the way you compensate which is what we feel we are what we also um observe is in some ways the better you do the more compensated you are and so there is a lot of debates about the quantums yeah but in some ways we believe that if the quantums are high as it's a variable pay that is a reflection that the results are there.

yeah on the other hand we also think it's important that we have an alignment and that alignment is a medium long-term alignment M and we expect not only the executives the leadership of our companies to own shares within our companies but we also believe that if we can have a broader based ownership which is what we have been doing in our companies it is really important to have that that alignment.

well as you know we are very transparent about these things and and the important thing for us is that the uh the packages are long-term they are Equity based they are result based um and and not kind of to stand out from industry um standards so we'll so so you may continue to get over against vote on these kind of things but uh but we we are grown up people but I.

I think Nikolai that's exactly aligned uh with us you are 100% aligned the difference is we would do more than industry standards because we feel that if you overperform within your industry you should also be overcompensated.

talking about um uh full speed here Ferrari I see when you talk about Ferrari you know you you you you smile differently from uh some of the other companies we talk about here so what's so special with Ferrari?

Ferrari is uh is about passion uh Ferrar is about uh being able in the free Souls that the company has is it a car company Ferrari is not a car company what is it Ferrari is a a very special company so it's beyond great it's beyond a great company it's a special company and it roots in racing a very strong the sports cars that it does are incredible.

and the opening up to all different areas within lifestyle is is giving a lot of opportunities to many people to be able to have Ferrari in their lives uh not necessarily all of them being able to have one of our cars.

what does Ferrari mean to an Italian?

ferar is is press of what uh our country can achieve and also a demonstration that uh we are a country of incredible abilities in genosity and there is a competitive Spirit also uh within the the uh the racing world uh we won in Monaco uh just a week ago uh with SH Clair who is from Monaco winning the first time in in his country and Monaco is a really important race and those are moments of incredible Joy.

now you are launching your first electric car next year and I tried to get you to show me a picture which you didn't want to I think you needed to kill me afterwards if you did but uh what is it going to look like?

it's going to look like nothing you would expect it to look like right and for us the electric car is a white canvas which allows us to use new technologies from the electric and the electronic world and to really be able to create and design a car which is very different and that is incredibly exciting.

and I think the the industry as of now has not yet explored the realm of possible that these new technologies can can provide us.

have you driven it yet?

I have tried it yes.

what does it feel like?

it's incredible.

in what way?

in all ways if you like to drive the Frills And the emotions that you will have on this car are just exceptional.

does it have a sound?

it it has a sound it will have a sound which that is even more precious to listen than the pictures I didn't show you.

so tell me you sat inside the car what did you experience?

it's a very different uh experience um and and what we are trying to do Nikolai is to give the opportunity at Ferrari to really take the most Advantage we can and the spaces particularly as you think about more space that you can obtain is is going to be special I can tell you different special and Incredibly incredibly fun to to actually drive.

you have not Johnny Ives uh also working with you at Ferrari who was the famous Apple designer what does he contribute?

Johnny IV and Mark new uh and have created love from which is a creative Collective yeah and we we are at Ferrar a very creative company and design is very important and there's always uh there's always dialogues between design engineering and Fin you all always need to make the numbers work as you well know Nikolai and the the contribution of Johnny and mark is really been incredibly positive because they've taught us other ways of thinking they've taught us other understanding of not only Hardware but also software.

and as the architect of the Apple watch which has been as of now the most successful example of what is a traditional mechanical analog product into an electronic and digital one all of that has been very very important as we think and we frame uh our our actions toward building this car all together.

and also working together working with them in California uh Us in maranelo the exchange we've had the discussions the dreams of what we wanted to do but then we can't do uh it has been a very invigorating experience and one that gives a huge amount of optimism and courage to to Ferrari as we think at our future that won't only be with our great combustion engines and 12 cylinders are hybrid engines that exist today uh not only in in the racing with our V6 hybrid but also in our sports cars and the electric cars that's is going to be uh starting its unveil in 2025.

some of the other car brands you've um grouped together in stantis so that's P Fiat uh and so on what are you working on here?

stantis has uh 14 and now 15 brands with with leap Motors uh which we recently announced which is our fully electric car company in China we're working very hard stantis is very committed to be able to be cost competitive at scale in electric vehicles.

do you think you'll get there I mean is it possible to beat the Chinese in EV?

I think we're getting there and I think it's a very exciting Challenge and we we also believe that with with Le Motors we are also now within the Chinese electric vehicle which by the way is the electric vehicle Market more than two-thirds of the electric vehicle company uh cars have been sold in China in 2023 and even more have been built in in China.

can the Europeans compete in Battery Technology?

I think the Europeans have to compete and the way in which the car is is composed is of many different uh components of which also batteries.

who is going to do well in Europe on the battery side?

ba B batteries are an important component and one of the most uh expensive one so the the importance is really to try and make sure that as you develop these new technologies both in chemistry and and and actually in in assembling these batteries you're able to find cost competitive uh Solutions.

I believe that there there's going to be a very broad um there's going to be a very broad offering uh stellantis has ACC which is a joint venture with total energy and Mercedes which is building batteries in Europe in Germany in France and in Italy and we have strong Partnerships with LG and Samsung in North America so we think it's important in this stage for an oem to have access to batteries that they control in addition that than to the ones that that they buy.

I feel that building an electric car is more than the battery and that's where a lot of the concentration should be going both in terms of engineering manufacturing and the overall product is is one that we're starting to see with great excitement the Fiat 500 electric which is built in in chin has been incredibly successful smaller cars like the Citroen Ami uh the the Topolino fat poino which is a two-seater which you can drive in urban centers is is very very successful and if we think about the muscle car that we historically have with with our Dodge brand uh that are also going electric that was a big demonstration of what we can do in terms of our range of Brands.

what do you drive?

I drive the Fiat 500 electric um that that's a car that I enjoy driving I also have a bigger car which is a Jeep uh which is a Jeep Grand vager and I luckily I also have the opportunity with my wife to drive nice cars like Ferraris or alfha Romeos and Maseratis.

well um good for you um now um um staying in the fast line here you also have a football club so Juventus you owned for 100 years why why do you own a football club?

Juventus was uh acquired by my great-grandfather uh and he was very passionate about football very passionate about his community and and he felt it was important to uh and and he he spent a lot of time uh with with Juventus and in the 30s uh there was an historical moment where Juventus won five championships in a row with an incredible team which is when my grandfather was young and and he got got incredibly passionate by football.

so football has been a true passion uh that we've had a responsibility that we've had as a family for more than a 100 years and a passion that my family shares with the many families that love Juventus.

do you go to all the matches?

I go to many matches and my my children were very fortunate to grow up in a period where Juventus won nine championships in a row so as my grandfather they actually ended up growing up with Juventus uh having extraordinary results so they're incredibly passionate.

do you learn anything from um running a football club that you can apply in all the parts of the business?

a football club is is made of people a football club is made of competing a football club is made of resources that are limited and that you need to try and and use in the best way there are many leadership uh traits that Sports and particularly football club have and so as as our companies aspire to be high performing companies you definitely learn in in high performing environments like like professional sport is.

John you are less represented in some of the high-tech Industries and it Ai and so on in terms of direct Investments but I but I gather you are investing through uh Venture Capital systems so I.

I studied engineering um and when I was studying engineering Internet and mobile were their nence Technologies and I actually uh among the other things I I did during those years I also founded a a company a startup back then which was a portal so I've always been very uh inclined and a tune with Innovation and and technology.

and we we we actually are in involved directly in in investing we have over 100 companies uh particularly within the fields of our interest like mobility and Healthcare and we also host the largest Tech Conference in Italy Italian Tech week and we have now a program which we're very proud of which is called vental and we are trying to really help with seed money any Italian entrepreneur or any Italian company within the early stage space and have become the larg investor within that area and it's very promising.

so you give them a tiny bit of money and see how he goes and then what you do?

and we also have a specific program which we learned from why combinator and others which is Sam oldman's which is set yes and was Sam's uh setup and we and we have different batches of uh to be Founders and we we go through that and and it's a very rigorous process and it's a very good good team that is doing that in chin and I was with them just a couple of uh actually last week and it's very uh very promising uh every every year there there is more courage to really innovate and there's more courage to want to actually build companies based on on Technologies.

and do you do this because you want uh you want Italy to be uh to be great or you do it because you think it's good business?

we we do our contribution with vento and Italian Tech week because we fundamentally believe that a country needs a future despite its great past and we believe that that's a very effective way in stimulating that future which goes alongside the work we do on philanthropies particularly with our foundation on education where we provide many different programs around education starting at schools with uh maths and physics and and around all the different stages uh within within education.

on the other hand we also think that it's important not only to transform and and to renew 19th century companies uh within uh within old Industries but also to start 21st century companies and and that's something which uh we we are very keen in doing and and working with with entrepr R preneurs who really believe that our our purpose of building great companies with great people and our values are very aligned with what they they're trying to do.

you increasingly are also active in the in the healthcare space and you bought um a big stake in in Phillips how did that come about?

we we believe Healthcare is is a critical industry and we've become much more much more aware of it after what we live through during the pandemic and how how frail we are as humans and and how healthare is so important to be able to sustain us in the future and particularly if you look at the increasing cost that that we have in providing the right healthare we believe that these problems are going to require Solutions and we've been focusing very much within the enablers and we believe that Phillips is an extraordinary company in really addressing those those issues.

and Phillips is a company that has an incredible history so we were very taken by it history and also one that is in in in in a phase of really renewing itself with the focus it has had over the last decade in healthcare and technology and it's a very determined and ambitious company in solving important factors so we we truly believe that Healthcare is not only a place where we do think there is a big impact one can have but we also believe that there is going to be a lot of solutions that ultimately will result in good commercial applications.

tell me about your interest in sailing I uh you know you've had a monoh hole with Maserati again you're now doing a a a Ferrari project within the sailing area what what is that going to look like um.

we we we announced that we were going to do a a Ferrari boat and it was going to be a boat uh that would not have an engine and uh it it it was really important uh for us to do a an internal project uh where we could use our capabilities in aerodynamics and also looking at how we can fly because the the new boats that that are coming up are all with foils.

and also creating a spirit of competition joanni soini with whom uh I've worked over the last decade with a mono then a multi- and now with with this new project is someone who has incredible experience and the level of EX internal excitement of trying to build something from new that doesn't exist and that is going to be flying and not powered by engine is also very important in terms of how we as a company at Ferrari are thinking about the future.

when is she going to be launched?

we want to launch it when we will launch the electric car all right in 20 the actual year will be 2026.

how do you relax do you relax?

that's a good question I I'm very fortunate to really love what what I do and uh I like to spend time with my family as a family we like to travel we used to do a lot of cultural uh traveling and then at some point our second son said that we ought to also explore nature and there was a lot to be learned by nature which we have been doing and one of our most recent trips was not far from here we went to uh to visit uh Iceland which was an incredible incredible trip.

and we enjoy sports we enjoy practicing Sports we enjoy uh watching sports together as a family and personally sailing has being a big passion of mine I'm not able to sail as much as I would like but in the last decade I've been able to sail competitively and doing in incredible Adventures Cape Town to Rio Los Angeles to Honolulu and the most recent one was Hong Kong to to Vietnam last last year.

and those are moment of where you are in a very small environment as you being a sailor you know which creates very strong camaraderie and intimacy and you're you are in these extraordinary scenes where you live with nature and the wind takes you or there's no wind then you need to wait and you are within the ocean and those are really magical moments.

now John what is your advice to young people?

the ad the advice to young people is first of all they need to be optimistic about the future because the future is theirs and they have the responsibility of building that future and that's not daunting it's exciting on a more practical uh I think the advice that my grandfather gave me remains true to listen and ask questions and in some ways curiosity and learning are really what you need to start young at.

well um J it's been great um hosting you here in in Oslo I think Italy is very lucky to have you and I think we need many more people like you in Europe generally so all the best of luck with everything colai.

thank you.