TEHA: Cernobbio Forum through 50 years

The great issues of the world of today and tomorrow have been discussed for 50 years at the Cernobbio Forum.

The idea of the Forum was conceived on a train between Verona and Milan, one foggy evening of November 1974, during a conversation between Alfredo Ambrosetti and Umberto Colombo. 

When Alfredo Ambrosetti (founder of The European House - Ambrosetti), assisted by some friends, including Umberto Colombo (scientist), Francesco Alberoni (sociologist), and Beniamino Andreatta (economist) organized in 1975 the first meeting in Villa d'Este on the state of the economy and the society's major trends, Italy was going through uncertain times. The terrorism threat of the Brigate Rosse, political instability, an economy that was in bad conditions: the Forum was born in such troubled times, and in 2024 it celebrates 50 years of history.

The first edition of the Cernobbio Forum took place in July 1975, in a context of strong political crisis and national elections: only 14 people participated. It was a very courageous act to launch the Forum in this context. In the second year, 37 applications were received; in 1977, 75; in 1979, 86; in 1980, 102; in 1984, 124; in 1988, 161; in 1990, 195 people requested to attend, and a waiting list was introduced. Today, the number of participants following the three-day event at Villa d'Este is fixed at 250, due to the limited space. 

From the beginning, the Forum's programme has always been structured in three macro-areas. 

1. Friday: major global issues, with a focus on economics, geopolitics and science/technology
2. Saturday: Europe and the European Union
3. Sunday: Italy

This structure was consolidated in the 1980s. 

The Forum's participants must respect the "Chatham House Rule". Everyone - may freely use the information received during the sessions, but must make no mention of the source (be it a speaker or a participant). 

The absence of the media has always facilitated a frank and honest exchange of views between participants. Over 100 national and international newspapers cover the event - including BCC, CNN, CNBC Europe/US, Financial Times, Daily Telegraph, The Wall Street Journal, RAI, Corriere della Sera, Sole 24 Ore, Repubblica, Mediaset, etc. - but they never step inside of the conference room, with the exception of selected directors and editors, who must follow the Chatham House Rule as well.

1983, 9th Cernobbio Forum

Marisa Bellisario, the first woman to attend the event, gave an enlightened talk on the future of telecommunications in 1983; at that time she was CEO of ITALTEL. Manager and leader of important electronic groups, advocate of meritocracy, at the time she was among the very few women who participated in the Forum. She and Enrica Pinetti, General Director of Media Trade, were the only two women participants until 1985.

2008, 34th Cernobbio Forum

The discussions around the European topic gave way to a collaboration between the former "Studio Ambrosetti" and Piero Angela, a renowned and beloved Italian scientific communicator and journalist, with whom we created the tv shows "Quark Economy" (1988) and "Quark Europe" (1992), to explain the meaning and consequences of the arrival of the common currency, the euro. Years later, in 2008, Piero Angela also participated in the Forum as moderator of the session dedicated to energy and climate change.

1992, 18th Cernobbio Forum

The end of the Soviet Union in 1991 was hailed as the end of the cold war and, for the West, as a double victory: democracy over communism. In the 1992 edition of the Cernobbio Forum, the issue of "Dis-Union of the Soviet Union" was at the centre of the debate and was discussed and commented by Renato Ruggiero (Head of International relations of the FIAT group), Hans Detrich Genscher (the first Minister of Foreign Affairs of the unified Germany), Anatoly Sobchak (Mayor of Petersburg and Putin’s university professor), Leonid Grigorev (Vice-Minister of Economy and Finance, Russia), Vladimir Shumekko (Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Government).

1993, 20th Cernobbio Forum

"Italy is the country I love. Here I have my roots, my hopes, my future. Here I learned, from my father and from life, my trade as an entrepreneur. Here I learned about the passion for freedom", said Silvio Berlusconi on the day he went into politics (January 26, 1994). Just a few months before the public announcement of the establishment of Forza Italia, Berlusconi's political party, he was at the Forum in Cernobbio as a participant. Photographies show him listening carefully to the debates and conversing with other attendees. He had been a frequent visitor to the Forum since the 1980s, first as President of Fininvest and then -in 2004 and 2005- as Italy's Prime Minister.

1996, 22th Cernobbio Forum

Bill Gates, then CEO of Microsoft, attended two editions of the Forum in Cernobbio, in 1995 and 1996. On his first participation, he showed a picture of a smartphone to the audience. 

In an interview published in January 2024 on the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Valerio De Molli, Managing Partner & CEO of TEHA Group, recalls an anecdote about Gates: he had arrived to the villa at 2 am from Prague, and instead of sitting down to eat after a long journey he asked to work on his presentation, and kept all his staff and ours rehearsing until 4 in the morning, drinking an ice-cold Coke.