Gianni Agnelli

Giovanni "Gianni" Agnelli (ˈdʒanni aɲˈɲɛlli; 12 March 1921 24 January 2003), nicknamed L'Avvocato ("The Lawyer"), was an Italian industrialist and principal shareholder of Fiat. As the head of Fiat, he controlled 4.4% of Italy's GDP, 3.1% of its industrial workforce, and 16.5% of its industrial investment in research. He was the richest man in modern Italian history. Agnelli was regarded as having an impeccable and slightly eccentric fashion sense, which has influenced both Italian and international men's fashion. Agnelli was awarded the decoration Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 1967 and the Order of Merit for Labour (Cavaliere del lavoro) in 1977. Following his death in 2003, control of the firm was gradually passed to his grandson and chosen heir, John Elkann. Agnelli was born in Turin; he maintained strong ties with the village of Villar Perosa, near Turin in the Piedmont region, of which he served as mayor until 1980. His father was the prominent Italian industrialist Edoardo Agnelli. His maternal grandmother was American; his mother was Princess Virginia Bourbon del Monte, daughter of Carlo, 4th Prince of San Faustino, head of a noble family established in Perugia, who was married with the American heiress Jane Allen Campbell. Agnelli was named after his grandfather Giovanni Agnelli, the founder of the Italian car manufacturer Fiat. At the age of 14, his father was killed in a plane crash, and he was raised by his grandfather, who died on 16 December 1945, fifteen days after Agnelli's mother, Virginia, died in a car crash. Known as Gianni to differentiate from his grandfather, with whom he shared his first name, he inherited the command of Fiat and the Agnelli family assets in general in 1966, following a period in which Fiat was temporarily ruled by Vittorio Valletta while he was learning how his family's company worked. Agnelli raised Fiat to become the most important company in Italy, and one of the major car-builders of Europe, amid the Italian economic miracle.