Alain Elkann Interviews - Intesa Sanpaolo On Air

James Thornton is the founding CEO of ClientEarth, an environmental charity using the law to create powerful change that protects life on Earth. James launched ClientEarth in 2007, sparking fundamental change in the way environmental protections are made and enforced across Europe. ClientEarth are funded by various streams and sources including trusts, foundations, individual donors and digital fundraising. Now operating globally, ClientEarth uses advocacy, litigation and research to address the greatest challenges of our time, including nature loss and climate change.

Fabiola Gianotti is the first woman Director-General of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva. Elected for a five year term in 2016, she was recently renominated to hold the position until 2025 and thus becomes the first Director to have two terms. The work of CERN helps to uncover what the universe is made of and how it works. They do this by providing a unique range of particle accelerator facilities to researchers, to advance the boundaries of human knowledge.

Sheila Hicks is a Nebraska born artist who studied at Yale School of Art with Josef Albers in the 1950s. She fell in love with Chile and Mexico and lived there for several years before moving to Paris in 1964. Known for her innovative and experimental weavings and sculptural textile art, Sheila’s work incorporates distinctive colours, natural materials, and personal narratives.

Nathan Heller is a staff writer at "The New Yorker", an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry, in which he often writes about technology, higher education, and contemporary socioeconomics. In his recent New Yorker article "The End of the English Major" he examined how enrollment in the humanities, which entail the study of the human world and society from a critical perspective and include majors like English, history, and philosophy, is in free fall at universities around the United States.

Gilles Bensimon is a French fashion photographer and the former International Creative Director of ELLE magazine.

Sophie Hicks is a British architect who was formerly a fashion editor. She has a unique understanding of how to create brand enhancing environments for her global client base.

Anne Pasternak is the Shelby White and Leon Levy Director of the Brooklyn Museum, one of the oldest and largest fine arts institutions in America. Pasternak is devoted to engaging broad audiences through the power of art, and she is a staunch advocate for the civic and democratic roles that cultural and educational institutions can play.

Michelangelo Pistoletto is one of the most influential contemporary artists of his generation and a leading proponent of the Arte Povera movement. In 1998 he founded “Cittadellarte”, an art and creativity laboratory in a disused textile mill on the Cervo River in Biella, Italy. In his new book, “La Formula della Creazione”, published by Cittadellarte Edizioni in December 2022, Pistoletto recounts the human and artistic journey that led him to define the Formula of Creation, which he also calls the Formula of Life.

Salvatore Settis was for years Director of the notorious Getty Center in LA, then he became Director of the prestigious Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. His incredible career brought him to curate different exhibitions around the world; visitors can admire his latest work in Fondazione Prada called “Recycling Beauty”.

John Currin is a New York based artist whose paintings portray highly charged social and sexual taboos. With inspirations as diverse as Old Master portraits, pinups, pornography, and B movies, his painting is the search for the point at which the beautiful and the grotesque are held in perfect balance.