Currently a director at Heritage Holdings – a family backed investment platform – Alessandro Panerai is a PSIA graduate from class 2015. Émile had the chance to discuss the brilliant career that led him to enter the Forbes under 30 ranking – in the Social entrepreneurs category – his strong international background, and his commitment to social entrepreneurship and a greener finance.

This article was written by Lucas Sornin, a recent graduate from the double degree between Sciences Po and Bocconi University (class 2022), former president of the French-Italian student association La Strada (2018-2021) and active member of Sciences Po Alumni’s Italian Chapter.

After a bachelor at Bocconi university – with highest honours – and a first master’s at the London School of Economics, Alessandro joined the master’s in International Public policy at Sciences Po with the aim to increase his quantitative skills in the field of politics and public policy. Looking back at his time at Sciences Po, he cannot help remembering the outstanding diversity and quality of profiles among professors and students. Italian, Alessandro became involved with La Strada, the French-Italian student association – which celebrated its 10th anniversary this year. He keeps great memories of his involvement in the French-Italian friendship at Sciences Po: Italian dinners, parties, meetings and conferences with famous personalities. This experience gave him the chance to meet the former director of the ECB that would later become the Italian Prime minister, Mario Draghi. 

International experience

There are two main pillars in his profile that Alessandro nurtured while studying at Sciences Po: international diversity and sustainability. Throughout his early years as a student and young professional, Alessandro built himself a very international profile with experiences in Chile, Indonesia, Lebanon, France, Italy, the UK and the US among others. Alessandro started his career with several experiences in the field of development – working with the United Nations in Jakarta for the UNORCID and in Beyrouth with the Italian NGO ICU. These experiences were not only about professional endeavours but also about long standing memories at a more personal level: among them, this time when he had to come back, by autostop, from a music festival on the Dieng Plateau …

“Sciences Po students are super advantaged for consulting”

Later on, Alessandro became a consultant at EY in the climate change and sustainability services department. He considers his experience in consulting as fundamental not only because he was working on very stimulating projects with a great team but mostly because it allowed him to develop certain soft skills such as the ability to prioritise or the capacity to adapt fast to different situations and people. He reckons that “Sciences Po students are super advantaged for consulting” thanks to the skills and network built during the academic track. The guiding thread of Alessandro’s professional background remains his commitment to social entrepreneurship and a greener finance. Alessandro multiplied his research experiences to develop informed insights about global warming and environmental public policies via the publishing of various articles on the topics of smart cities and smart utilities. According to him, the commitment to the environment is more important than ever, especially in the world of finance when it comes to determining the environmental impact of an asset – which is always a tricky thing to do.

Forbes Under 30 ranking

His activities further led Alessandro to take part from 2015 in the works of the World Economic Forum Global Shapers Community as a Project Leader. In 2019, he was among the Italians to be selected to appear in the Forbes Under 30 ranking in the Social Entrepreneurship category. As a person with a strong entrepreneurial mindset, Alessandro would give the following advice to current Sciences Po students: “Commit to a project, stick to it and do it well”. Overall, Alessandro acknowledges the very extensive network to which Sciences Po gives access and emphasizes on the importance of networking. Last year, Alessandro embarked on a new entrepreneurial journey with 6 fellow co-founders, by launching Heritage Holdings, a family backed investment platform partnering with carefully selected alternative asset managers with a long-term mindset.