Valencia Sailing talked on Tuesday afternoon to Francesco de Leo, CEO of Green Comm, the Italian team that filed a challenge for the 33rd America’s Cup, representing the Cirvolo Vela Gargnano. Our talk took place in the base of the 32nd America’s Cup challenger +39 and covered a wide spectrum of questions such as Green Comm’s agenda, its aim, its relation to Alinghi, its finances, its ability to design, build and race a 90ft trimaran in such a short time, or even its legitimacy.
Valencia Sailing: I have a lot of questions and I will start with the most direct one, asked by several of our readers. Are you a pawn of Alinghi, used in their quest to buy time in order to better prepare for the inevitable one-on-one race with BMW Oracle?
Francesco de Leo: No, we are absolutely not their pawns. This is a challenge that started with completely different objectives and has its own global agenda. It isn’t a coincidence that we are called Green Comm and this has to do with my personal background. Probably your readers don’t know it but I won the third mobile phone license in Spain when I was managing director of Telecom Italia, the youngest managing director of a listed company in Italy because at the age of 35 I was the managing director of M&A, of international operations, of business development as well as manager of our affiliates abroad. I was in charge of 12,000 employees and 9 billion euros of business.
Valencia Sailing: Let me rephrase the question. Is Green Comm’s challenge a delaying tactic used by Alinghi?
Francesco de Leo: No. Look, I have no connection whatsoever with Ernesto Bertarelli…
Valencia Sailing: That was my following question. Are Ernesto Bertarelli or Alinghi, directly or indirectly, financing Green Comm?
Francesco de Leo: The answer is again no. I have to admit I’m also very surprised with these questions that your readers posted on your website. Let me clarify it once and for all. The reason I am talking to you today is to clarify that this is an independent, unrelated challenge and I am myself, Francesco de Leo, organizing it. Everything that is written regarding our association with any other person or entity has to be proven in court or otherwise it is false. I can assure you that tonight, I can call my lawyers in Madrid. In fact, yesterday I had a meeting with Niccoló Bastianini, head of our legal advisory team and one of the best lawyers in Italy. Bastianini is in constant contact with my lawyers in Lausanne and one has to be aware that if one decides to make affirmations not substantiated by evidence, they will have to be accountable.
Valencia Sailing: Still, is it a coincidence that the world headquarters of Simtone, the first sponsor you publicly announced, are in Vevey, Switzerland, close to Serono’s facilities and the Décision boatyard?
Francesco de Leo: I will tell you everything about Simtone. If you go to the company’s website, www.simtone.net, you’ll see that I form part of its advisory board. Simtone is the creation of Mario Dal Canto, one of the initial managers of Sun Microsystems, together with founders Scott McNealy and Bill Joy. One of my dearest friends and mentor, Sol Trujillo, CEO of US West, then Orange and now Telstra, was one of Dal Canto’s financial backers. I know Mario since a very long time. He’s an Italian with a very strong presence in the US and creator of what is probably the world’s most powerful cloud computing platform. This technology will also be of use to me for our challenge.
Valencia Sailing: Yes, but let’s consider the following fact. You are the only team or yacht club to have officially challenged, after BMW Oracle, for an America’s Cup that will definitely be sailed in huge multihulls. I haven’t seen, at least publicly, a challenge from any of the French multihull legends, that, undoubtedly, have the expertise and knowhow to be competitive in such a race. You have to admit this creates serious doubts about your ability to be competitive in such a short time.
Francesco de Leo: I understand your question because I was the first one to ask it myself but we have to take things into perspective. When I was managing different businesses, I was handling investments worth 2-3 billion euros and making acquisitions worth 7-8 billion euros. When now you ask me how difficult it is to have a 28-million euro budget I realize it is a big number in sailing but it’s only a day’s revenue for a telecom operator like Wind. As a result, you have to take into consideration one’s background. Secondly, in order to make this a successful challenge it’s not only necessary to have a design team or winning design ideas. It’s even more important to come from a country that has a high-level aeronautical industry…
Valencia Sailing: I will interrupt you again, but there is no multihull experience in Italy, unlike France where you have legends such as Franck Cammas, Loïck Peyron or Pascal Bidégorry, just to name a few.
Francesco de Leo: You are absolutely right, but if you go to Google and type “multihulls” you will have much more information than what I had myself 20 years ago when I was doing my PhD in California. The world has changed and people still don’t understand it. They think we are in the 1980’s. If you have the right contacts and the right people, you can build any challenge you want. Let me give you an example. Sol Trujillo, with whom I’ll dine on Friday in Venice, covered the entire Australian territory, 98% of its population with a high-speed wireless network in 10 months. You are obviously aware that Australia is as big as Continental Europe.
How did he achieve it? Certainly not by doing the things the usual way in the telecom sector. He reviewed all processes, the roles of each person, saw where time savings could be made and carried out his plan. People now ask me, “How can you build a catamaran before February?”, my answer is simple. Trujillo covered the entire Australian territory in 10 months and we will not able to build a multihull in 3 months? It depends a lot on your starting point. I come with a different background and a managerial experience. I’m sorry to see people are very surprised but they shouldn’t be surprised at all.
Lorenzo Rizzardi (left), president of Circolo Vela Gargnano, and Francesco de Leo, CEO of Green Comm Challenge. Valencia, 26 May 2009. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing
Valencia Sailing: But even Alinghi and BMW Oracle, two high-level professional sailing teams, had to use the expertise of French multihull specialists and you can’t deny there are dozens of years of racing yacht design in both of them. In addition, Green Comm being, let’s say, the continuation of +39…
Francesco de Leo: Wait, stop here. Lets make things clear. There is no relation between +39 Challenge and Green Comm Challenge. I understand that +39 has been a complicated and difficult situation but in 2007 I was NOT in Valencia, I was in another part of the world doing something completely different. If anyone still claims we are a continuation of +39 makes a big mistake. The only contact point is the fact we are representing the Circolo Vela Gargnano.
Original post by noreply@blogger.com (Valencia Sailing) and software by Elliott Back
