Diego Piacentini, vice president of Amazon, has been appointed by the Renzi government as commissioner for digital and innovation. He will start working next summer and will have the task of linking the various figures in Italy who deal with digitization on behalf of Palazzo Chigi, from the Agency for Digital Italy to the various in-house companies of the ministries.
The news came at 22 pm Italian time from an exchange on Twitter between Jeff Bezos, CEO and founder of Amazon, and Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. “Mr Prime Minister, we are so proud of Diego Piacentini. Congratulations to all,” wrote Bezos. Ten minutes later, Renzi echoed him: “Thank you. It will be a pleasure to work with Diego Piacentini”.
Piacentini, born in Milan in 1960 and graduated in political economy from Bocconi in 1985, joined Amazon in 2000 as senior vice president and general manager for the international division. Before joining the Seattle giant, Piacentini was vice president and general manager of Apple Computer Europe, where he managed operations for the Old Continent, the Middle East and Africa and where he joined in 1987 holding various positions both in Italy and on European scale. Earlier he had worked in financial management at Fiat Impresit in Italy.
