Once upon a time. . . . I was born in Naples, Italy, on August 27 1971.
I spent all of my teenage years in Torre del Greco, a city stretching from the summit of
the Vesuvius, the volcano overlooking the Bay of Naples, to the Mediterranean.
There, I attended, what in Italy is called, a "Classical" high school, where I studied ancient Latin and Greek,
and played a lot of soccer as a young (and not-so-experienced) goalkeeper.
Then, when it looked almost certain that I would become a lawyer like my father,
I instead enrolled at Bocconi University in Milan.
I graduated in Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics with summa cum laude.
Soon after my graduation day (June 15 1994), the Italian Army called me to the mandatory military service.
I served in the Transmission corps first, and then in the Gunnery Regiment, in Piedmont, Rome, and eventually Milan
for twelve months. During my last months of service, I started working as a teaching
assistant for the core Macroeconomics course taught by my thesis coordinator at Bocconi University.
I then worked for one year as a portfolio manager for an Italian mutual fund company.
Between the new job, the assistantship at Bocconi, and my friends in Milan, I was pretty happy.....
however, I decided to shake things up and, in 1996, I went to the U.S. for an MBA in Finance at the
Stern School of Business, New York University, and became an adoptive New Yorker.......
Those were two full years of intense work....not so intense though as to prevent me to keep playing
as a goalkeeper for the Stern soccer team, and to reach the semifinals of the MBA World Soccer
Tournament in Yale in the fall of 1996, and the quarterfinals in the fall of 1997.
Maybe for my goalkeeping skills (!?), or maybe because Stern never had a goalkeeper playing for
its team for so long, ....well, the department of Finance offered me to continue my studies as
a Ph-D student. Thus, after a stint as a research associate for an american investment bank,
I spent the next five years studying Finance, and playing soccer for the Stern team!
Finally, after earning my degree, I was hired by the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan,
not as a goalkeeper, but as an Assistant Professor of Finance.
Currently, and clearly despite my goalkeeping skills (!?), I am a Professor of Finance with Tenure.
If you want to know more about me, please take a look at my resume!
[ RESUME ]
