Thank you. So ladies and gentlemen, of course, it's a great pleasure to welcome you tonight. This residence is not only a place of diplomacy but also a space where ideas, culture and innovation meet. So we are particularly pleased to host this event in collaboration with the Voice Room, which I would like to thank, and above all with Ferrari. Ferrari is an emblem of Italian excellence, creativity, and technological mastery. It's of course a pleasure to welcome with us this evening the CEO of Ferrari, Mr. Benedetto Vigna. Ferrari is in many ways far more than a company. It's a symbol, a symbol of Italy's ability to combine engineering precision with artistic vision, performance with beauty, innovation with identity. It represents what we might call the Italian 'saper fare' — that unique capacity to transform knowledge into excellence and excellence into emotion. From its roots in Modena and Maranello, in the heart of what is known as the Motor Valley, Ferrari has become a global icon. And yet it has never lost its deep connection to its territory, to its culture and to the values that define Italy at its best: creativity, craftsmanship, and a relentless pursuit of quality. Tonight's discussion, 'Ferrari Fast Forward,' invites us to reflect on how a brand so deeply rooted in history continues to lead in a world of rapid technological change. We are living in an age where industries are being reshaped by digital transformation, by sustainability challenges and by evolving expectations around what luxury, performance and innovation truly mean. In this context, Ferrari offers a fascinating case: how to embrace the future, whether through electrification or new technologies, while remaining faithful to a clear and distinctive identity. Benedetto Vigna's whole journey embodies this intersection and we look forward to discovering more about his experience, which is a perfect example of how boundaries between disciplines are increasingly fluid and true innovation often emerges at their intersection. Before concluding, I would also like to acknowledge the presence of the students and young professionals among us. Your perspective is essential because the future we are discussing tonight will belong, of course, to you. Moments like this are an opportunity not only to listen but to imagine new paths forward. So I wish you an inspiring and engaging discussion. Thank you very much.
Good evening everyone. My name is Caitlyn and it is a great pleasure to officially welcome you all on behalf of Voice Room. Before we begin, we would first like to welcome Ambassador Fabio Cas to London as well as thank him and the members of the Italian embassy for so graciously accommodating us and for supporting what is sure to be a very special event. Tonight, as you know, we are deeply honored to have with us Mr. Benedetto Vigna, the CEO of Ferrari, as we explore the intersection between Italian excellence, automotive heritage, and of course, the world of luxury. This is Voice Room's first speaker event for 2026. So, I must say it feels only fitting that we are kicking off the year of the horse with one of the most iconic horses in the world, the Prancing Horse. Before we dive into the interview, Benedetto, would you like to say a few words?
It's a pleasure for me to be here. I would like to thank the ambassador for the hospitality. We had a very interesting discussion before, and also all of you to be here, as well as the organizer for inviting the horse in the year of the horse to talk about luxury. Thank you.
Thank you. We're very happy to have you here. So to start with, you come from a very interesting background. You are a physicist by training and initially wanted to pursue an academic career before ultimately choosing to move into industry. This led you to STMicroelectronics where you spent over two decades and famously helped build MEMS, micro-electromechanical systems, essentially from the ground up, as well as a new business from scratch that is now worth several billion. Could you take us through that journey and tell us what it was like building such an entirely new innovation in a large organization?
Well, I have to say I was lucky because I selected to study physics because I got in touch with one Nobel Prize winner, 1987, Richard Feynman. He was a Nobel Prize winner in the 60s. He was one of the people that was in the Los Alamos project. When I had him, I fell in love with physics. I never thought to study physics. I fell in love with him and I studied physics. But my idea at the beginning was to go there, to stay there. But then when I saw that too much time was needed to close the loop, because I was working on experiments of the boson. I graduated in 1993. The boson was found in 2012. So 12 plus 7 is a little bit too much for me. I said I want to work for companies that make products that generate business. And I was lucky because I found that company making chips called STMicroelectronics. I was lucky because I found a boss that helped me to grow. He was able to manage me very well. He gave me space, freedom. And then I think I was lucky also because I found some clients like Nintendo in Japan, in particular the CEO Satoru Iwata, and then after him I met some other people, Steve Jobs as well, the CTO of Samsung. They trusted our technology so I could grow a business. We were a few people just fresh from university. We went from zero to six billion euros. People were telling us there was no business. We sold more than 50 billion sensors all over the world. All the mobile phones you have in the pocket are full of sensors. When I started there was not a single sensor. And then when I felt the need to do something different, more engaging, it was time for me to leave that space and to go somewhere else. And I think, you know, there is an important consideration. More and more semiconductor companies are becoming a kind of execution arm of the final client. The final clients that master the application are telling you what to do. And those people, the semiconductor guys, do it. I wanted to do a little bit more creative, more innovative. So Ferrari for sure gives us the freedom and the possibility to be creative, to be innovative and to put together, as the ambassador said, the dimension of the beauty. The chips are not beautiful, believe me. The chips are a bunch of electrons moving here and there and something else, but they are not beautiful at all. So the dimension of the beauty, the dimension of the craftsmanship and the dimension of human people, they all fit together. So that's, if you want, in a nutshell the journey. And really I think that I always had the opportunity to work and I have the opportunity to work with people that are highly motivated. And when I say people, I say the people in Ferrari at different levels as well as the people around us. Call it dealer, call it sponsor, call it partner. Because for a system, a company to grow in a sustainable way, you need all the ecosystem to work and to act as a guardian of the brand, to take care of the brand.
So as you said, you decided to move into a new chapter of your career after some time at STMicroelectronics. And you know, in the technology world, progress is often fast-paced and iterative, but in the luxury world, change is handled a little more delicately and has a much more human dimension with the past being a fundamental ingredient. How did you approach and navigate that cultural transition?
But you said it well. In IT, the past is meaningless. In IT, the past is meaningless. And that's the reason why I like to say in this way: tech companies move at speed 100, other industries move at lower speed. When you talk about luxury you talk about this human dimension where that gets expressed through the past, through the heritage. I think that for a luxury company to be fast-paced you need to be around 30. If I take most 100, you need to move at 30 in relative numbers. I think that what does it mean to balance the two extremes, the past and the future? Because on one side you cannot live in the past, otherwise you become a piece of museum, and you cannot live in the future, otherwise you are something that is like IT. You have to put the needle over there in the middle and you need to do that studying the history of the company, studying the history of the brand and reinterpreting it with new eyes. I'll make an example. Okay, take the Ferrari Elettrica, the electric Ferrari that we are announcing, unveiling and so on. You may have two kind of actions being a Ferrari. Okay, you may have two approaches. Number one: no, we never did it. We always did ICE cars, it does not make sense. I don't think it's the right way because our founder in 1947 imitated a car company called Packard to make the 12-cylinder and he made something that is still alive today. You need to bring forward the flag of innovation and you don't bring forward the flag of innovation if you close yourself in the past. And then you have the other approach: only innovation, forgetting the story. Well, this means that you are a company that is not giving value to what has been done in the past. So Elettrica for us, Ferrari Elettrica, you will see it is a kind of synthesis of what has been the history of the company interpreted with new eyes. We were just discussing before with the ambassador. We as a company need to do red car, ICE car, white car, hybrid, and green car because it is electric. Italian flag, that's what we said. Okay. I think that the challenge for a company like ours, that is also the beauty of our company, is that you have to put the two dimensions together. It's too easy for a luxury company to live in the past. But if you live in the past, you are cutting the leg. It means you care only about the current generation. You don't care about the future. Where current generation means current generation client, current generation of employee, current generation of sponsor, current generation partner. It's not easy. Sometimes we make mistakes. People say in English correctly, we make mistakes. But then it's important that we recover. So we did several things in the last year. We made some mistakes that we have been able to recover. But I believe, we profoundly believe in the importance to put together these two dimensions. We cannot live in the past only. We cannot live in the future only. We have to put the needle over there. And Ferrari, with the beauty of history, we have the storytelling, we have the technology, can make it.
That's very interesting. Thank you. It's clear that you have a very, very firm grasp on the culture and the philosophy behind Ferrari. And when you think about that in the context of leadership, of actually leading the company forward, you have often described leadership as needing a helicopter view, not only the ability to see the big picture from the top, but also the willingness to come down and be present on the field. And to that regard, you're widely recognized for fostering a more open communication culture within Ferrari. In fact, I learned that when you first joined the company, you asked your assistant to arrange 300 one-on-one interviews across 90 days. What were you hoping to understand through those conversations? And were there any messages that shaped your priorities for the company?
I take as a big advantage, if you want. Number one, if you don't move fast, you die. In IT, if you don't move fast, you die. Look at how many IT companies were existing 20 years ago, or maybe 10 years ago, that are not existing anymore. Fact number one. Fact number two, to move fast, you need to think in terms of open innovation. You may often hear the story of Moore's Law. Moore's Law means that the number of transistors is doubling every 18 months. This is possible because all the people in the ecosystem work together, otherwise it wouldn't be possible. Number three, in IT it's a kind of really strong cooperation among all the partners and the companies. In IT, if you pay attention, are more unstructured. Let me say something a little bit more. If you go in an IT company, take it East or West, the CEO is queuing up to take the elevator. If you take an IT company, the CEO does not have a private restaurant. The CEO is not the first to sit before other people take the coffee. If you go in old-style companies that pretend to be tech, that's not the way it works. So for me, to understand the company, and that was good thanks to a good advice I got from a previous CEO. He did many big things. So I was always used to consult with people that did this job before me. He told me, 'Benedetto, you need to talk to the people in an unstructured way.' So what I was doing, I was calling 300 people, N-1, N-2, N-3, with open questions, and then I understood what was working, what was not working. And then thanks to them, we did it. The company is where it is today not because we had a big strategic plan, but because we listened to the people. The people are the best consultants of product strategy and the best consultants, the internal people, of the way to work. They know the way. You just need to pose the right question and to listen to them. So what we did: number one, we got rid of... we had nine hierarchical levels. I mean, in a company of 6,000 people, nine hierarchical levels is ridiculous. So we went from nine to five. Number two, we put objectives across the different teams. The people were great but they were working too much inside silos. Working in a team is not easy. Takes a lot of energy. Why was it possible in Ferrari? Number one, we are not so big. We are small, 6,000 people. Number two, we are in the same place. Number three, there is a lot of passion and innovation, a will to change things that is really unique. Because if you think, Ferrari is a kind of startup. When you are in a startup mode, think about the startup company. All the people are highly committed to that. Usually the bigger and older the company becomes, the more, quote unquote, complacency percolates. So this is not the case of Ferrari. So it has been relatively easy for a company such as Ferrari because one, we are not so big, two, we are in the same place, and three, also because the people were really willing to change things. But really, one of the best things I'm really proud of is to talk to them, to ask them, and to make the things. Because when you show the people that what they say, you make it, they understand that they can dance and you can change things.
Very, very true. I agree. The removal of the hierarchy is very, very important to not only opening communication channels but really driving progress within the company itself. So now let's talk about Ferrari. And to preface this discussion, we'll first watch the brand film that you've shared with us. What is it about this brand that captures the passion and imagination of so many around the world?
Its groundbreaking innovation and the world's most advanced automotive technologies. It's drivers dressed in red atop podiums. It's a driving thrill, a symphony of speed and emotion igniting all the senses. It is the car. It's a way of life. At Ferrari, we do what others only dare dream. And we always will. Because no matter how many finish lines we cross, we are never finished. Together, we audaciously redefine the limits of possible.
As we just saw, Ferrari is not just a company. It is, as they said, a way of living and very much a product of its culture. At its core, Ferrari carries a distinctively Italian identity. It was founded in Modena, later found its home in Maranello, the heart of the Motor Valley. What is it about this region that has allowed so many engineering-driven companies to flourish there?
I'll share with you a consideration that I did one year ago. I was, for some strange reason, I went from... I visited a region that had nothing underground. I was in Korea, I was in the Stuttgart Valley, and I was in Modena. Well, when you have nothing underground, the people over the ground have to be innovative, otherwise they have nothing to eat. Make a consideration. Look, historically speaking, historically speaking, it's the places it happens often. Take also Taipei. You are from Taipei, right? Taichung. Sorry, take also Taiwan. There is not oil, there is not gold, there is no uranium, there are not so many resources you may find elsewhere. I think again, I'm not... usually when you have nothing underground, you need to invent something. Now take the specific case of Modena. Go back 100 years ago. This was a place where there were rivers with water, so with energy, and over the time there has been the development of a lot of, let me say, electro-mechanic, hydraulic competencies. If you are in that place, you have a lot of companies that are able to manage three things very well: mechanics, electronics, and software. There are company leaders from there. If you go in companies making, for example, batteries, or if you go in the world, if you go in other companies making high-tech things, you have a lot of companies from that space. So I think a part is history, part is the limitation of geography that you have to compensate for, a part is the ingenuity of the people that were there. I think that what Ferrari did over the course of the last century is something that other people may have done or have done in other countries. The point here in our case, there is a man that has lived all the century because he was born in 1898, he died in 1988. So he has seen all the century and he's able to go through the two world wars. He is able to create something distinctive and very important. Not only he developed the technology, he also started from the client. Because if you start to develop a technology then you forget the client, you're gone. And if you think about the client but you have no technology, you are also gone. So I think if you think also about other successful companies, you need always to put these two things together: what you know, what you do, and also how you communicate what you do. It is not enough only to have a technology product to sell to a client, but also important how you communicate. And I think Enzo Ferrari was a great communicator. I think, and this is what I always keep in mind, that we need to know how to do, how to communicate, and thinking to the client. Otherwise we make a beautiful car that are not giving the driving emotion the people are willing to experience when they enter Ferrari.
In many ways, Ferrari is a moving expression of Italy and is considered to be a symbol of the Italian art of living. If you could take just one cultural value from Ferrari's home in Italy that you believe the brand best represents and insert it into every global outpost, what would it be and why?
Maybe I would put 'will to progress.' The will to progress, I like it because it's something that is a spring of the evolution of humankind. It's the will you have inside you that is pushing to redefine the limit of possible. I like this sentence because many people, many people, you may think about Ferrari like a Formula 1 car, like endurance car, like the sports car, like... no, Ferrari is a way to be. It's about challenging yourself to audaciously redefine the limit of possible. That is what is Ferrari. And there is a nice sentence, a nice quote of our founder, because he did a lot of quotes, he wrote a lot of quotes. When I was in that company I had always to look for different quotes. Now it's easy. I have a lot of quotes. I have a booklet. There is this quote that I like a lot. It says: 'To whom it comes after me, I leave a simple inheritance: to keep alive the will to progress, poor in the past.' For me, that's it. You may be a physicist. You may be a doctor. You may be whatever. I mean, any kind. You may be a chef in a restaurant. It's about this. That is honestly what does it mean: will to progress, keep alive. And in Europe we need, especially in Europe we need it. In other continents or subcontinents like India, let's say, the will to progress is stronger. I think the company Ferrari with this, it's a message for all of us. And that is also the message of Ferrari Elettrica. That is the message of Ferrari Elettrica. We can do, we can, why not? We can.
Well, values are one thing, but how you communicate and operationalize them can take many different forms. Engineering and design, as we've seen, are often treated as separate narratives with the former being more technical and precise and the latter being more emotional and subjective. But somehow Ferrari seems to perfectly embody both. How do you bring this unique dialogue between mechanical excellence and aesthetic beauty forward in the way you communicate the brand?
But I think before communication it's important that the things happen. Maybe because we are small, maybe because we are in the same place, but when we define the concept of a new car, the design of a new car, we have the engineers and the designers working hand in hand. As I said, because we are not big, we are small, it's easy for us. So to be practical, we have teams of people that are composed by engineers and designers working hand in hand. So if I want, for example, a lip in this place because it's beautiful from a design point of view, but it cannot be there because of drag coefficient, I mean, they find a solution. So it's very much iterative the process. So car development is very much iterative. And I have to say that I'm lucky because I have people that are listening to each other. There are sometimes some contrasts, but it's normal. So I think that it's easy to communicate that the two dimensions are hand in hand because that's what is happening. It's difficult, you know, when it is not happening, when you have to make a storytelling and there is no ground, then it's not easy. But for us, this part it's easy. And I'm thinking now, the last meeting I had with the design and the engineers, it was very interesting because you see different points of view but at the end of the story we always find the right compromise. I mean, if you see also the last car, the 296 GTB, Testarossa, that one, or the Purosangue is this downstairs, and you will see the Elettrica. So I think it's all about finding the right compromise.
I think you found the perfect compromise. What you're doing is clearly working because everyone wants to be part of Ferrari's story. Ferrari's customers are a diverse global cohort from longtime collectors to younger buyers. First of all, in your opinion, what does it mean to be a Ferrari client? In the sense of how do you handle the responsibility of deciding who gets to be part of Ferrari's story and what attitudes and behaviors make someone a good custodian of the brand?
First of all, I have to say that one of the ways that I got to know a lot about Ferrari was through clients. Some of them are in this room. Okay. The clients in this company, in Ferrari, act really like guardians of the brand. Sometimes there are people outside the company that are stronger guardians than the people in the company. I'm saying this because it's true and I'm using this as an example to push the people in the company to understand more and more the meaning. What does it mean to be a guardian? I think that when I was entering, before entering Ferrari, okay, because I was traveling all over the world, I'm Italian but I was not spending time in Italy, okay, for professional purposes. The business of Italy in that company was worth 0.2%. So I did not care about that, let's put it this way. Before entering, I tried to understand the clients of Ferrari. It's not possible. You understand the clients of Ferrari when you talk to them. And when you talk to them you see people, a lot of people that created their own business, very often starting from zero, in different fields, in different things, fields, and they like to drive a car because they enjoy it. The kind of people that we have in our brand, talk about men, women, are clients that are self-made. Self-made, I'm talking about Taiwan because you are from Taiwan, okay, but if you go to Taiwan, sorry I don't want, but if you go to Taiwan, our company is growing a lot over there. And if I go, because I know a lot of clients over there, that was also a region where I was going for business, a lot of them are self-made men and women. But I can come to UK, I can go to Germany, I can go to Switzerland, I can go to the US today. I think maybe this is not so much known outside. Maybe people tend to think that the people taking a Ferrari just want to show off. Well, I can tell you that the people that buy Ferrari for a show-off, so far I never met. These are people that want to have fun. These are people that also give you, give me, and that are people that give advices on how to improve the things. There is one important project in the company that we activated to improve something, I don't tell you which one, but we improved something because of a long mail with advice we got from a German client in July. And it's not easy for a company to have such kind of attention from clients that are telling you, 'You know what, you should do this, you should do that, you can do this.' And I have a lot of people advising us. So who are the clients of Ferrari?
People that want to enjoy life, that want to live a lifestyle, that are attached to the brand, to what the brand represents. Because that purpose to audaciously define the limit of possible, we define it in that way thanks also to the interaction with clients. So that is also the result of interaction with clients. It is not our purpose to make cars. No, our purpose is what we said. So these are the clients of Ferrari, and believe me, they are among the strongest guardians of our brand. They are among all the people, you know, at the center of what we do. All the companies, there is a client. Yes, here the clients are at the center and around because they are a kind of shield. So that's, if you want, a uniqueness of our company because we have clients, let's say we don't have clients, we have fans, okay? We have fans because they're really attached to our brand.
Ferrari is known also for cultivating this extreme desirability through controlled production. Now, I know you've said before that you had planned for approximately 20 new models between now and 2030. So how do you maintain the same sense of exclusivity while still continuing to expand your lineup and explore new markets?
The answer, if you want, is in the question itself because there are two ways. First of all, to be exclusive, it means that you don't have to do too many cars. Fact number one. Then what you can do, you can do a few models, higher volume, or you can do more models, lower volume. We selected to go this way. We said instead of making, let me say, three models and doing 10 cars each, we do 10 models, we do three cars each. The multiplication is the same, but we offer uniqueness of what we do to our clients. Clearly, this is a drawback for us because we have to put more money in R&D, no doubt. But we believe that if the clients are the shield of our brand, we need to do something special for them. Take the Purosangue. The Purosangue, we could have been selling much more than what we did. We could have easily sold 50, 60% of our total production of Purosangue. We didn't. We said no more than 20%. I think it's important that one, we don't increase too much the number of cars. Two, we make more models and we limit the number of cars we do for that model. Our is limited because we have a different Ferrari for different clients. We call them 'Ferristi', the clients of Ferrari. Different Ferrari for different Ferristi, different Ferrari for different moments. You may have a 812 Superfast that is very sporty and a Ferrari Roma for different moments and different moments of, let's say, all the life. So this is our strategy. I like to call it horizontal diversification strategy, more limited in volume.
