Giovanni Battista Alberto Pirelli was born on December 27, 1848, in Varenna, Italy. He died on October 20, 1932, in Milan, Italy. He was an Italian entrepreneur, engineer, and politician. He founded the Pirelli company in Milan. In 1919, he was the president of Confindustria.

Early life

Pirelli was the son of Rosa Riva and Santino Pirelli. He was the eighth of ten children. His father was a baker who died when Pirelli was eight years old. Pirelli attended the Polytechnic University of Milan.

Career

After he graduated, his professor Giuseppe Colombo, who was both a business owner and a teacher, helped pay for his trips to Germany and France to study manufacturing. He saw rubber manufacturing, a new type of business at the time, as a good opportunity to start in Italy. In 1872, he created the Pirelli company using money from his own savings and loans from banks. The business grew quickly, with factories opened in Spain and in North and South America.