Francesco Brioschi

Professor emeritus of Politecnico di Milano

"Francesco Brioschi (1938) graduated in Electronic Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 1962. After a year of professional experience in Pirelli (where he held an organisational role) he began his academic career in 1963 as a scholarship holder at the General Electrotechnical Institute in the group of Professor Emanuele Biondi. He published articles with Arturo Locatelli and Roberto Schmidt on the theory of automatic controls and dynamic programming. In 1966 he became assistant in Automatic Controls.

In 1967-1968 he was commissioned by the Faculty of Engineering of Politecnico di Milano to travel to the USA to visit the most prestigious business schools (including Harvard) and study the experience of academic curricula that integrate Engineering studies with the topics of Economics and Business Management. After his return to Milan, Politecnico introduced the Marketing, Research Operations and Business Management courses into its study plans, adding them to the Economics and Business Organisation course, already compulsory since 1962. The foundations of the future Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering project were thus laid.

In 1969 Francesco Brioschi was lecturer in Automatic Controls and in 1970 he published an article in the prestigious magazine Operations Research. In 1972 he co-authored the book Non-serial Dynamic Programming. In the 1970s, together with Umberto Bertelè, he dedicated himself to agro-food economics, also carrying out consultancy activities for various Ministries. In 1976, he became Temporary Full Professor and then Full Professor of Operations Research in the new course of Industrial Technologies Engineering, established in 1979 with an economic-organisational focus. He transferred to the chair of Industrial Economics (later Economics of Industrial Systems) in 1982, which he held until 1995. In the 1980s he contributed significantly to planning the future curriculum in Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, established in 1990.

From 1989 to 1991 he was a lecturer in the Mergers and Acquisitions course at the École de Ponts et Chaussées in Paris.

In 1990, he was a member of the organising committee set up at the University of Bergamo for the establishment of the Faculty of Engineering.

In 1992 he was a candidate in the political elections.

In the 1990s he dedicated himself, together with Massimo Colombo and Luigi Buzzacchi, to the study of business groups and shareholding interconnections. His book Groups of firms and the financial market was published. He was a consultant for Consob and Banca d'Italia. He carried out some expert reports on behalf of the Courts (in particular for Publitalia, ACEA, Acqua Marcia).

He was appointed to the Board of Governors of Politecnico di Milano and Director of the Specialisation School in Computer Science in Como.

In 1991 he became the first Head of the newly-formed Department of Economics and Production of Politecnico di Milano (which later became the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering), which brought together lecturers from the Departments of Mechanics and Electronics.

From 1996 to 2002 he led the Corporate Finance course. Since 2003 he has been responsible for the Corporate Finance B course. In this period his research topics concerned the raising of capital, the ownership structures of SMEs and extraordinary finance.

He was invited to join the Board of Directors of the companies Banco di Desio and Navigazione Montanari. In 1998 he became Chairman of Banknord Gepafi SIM. In 2002 he founded the financial company Sofia Holding and in 2006 he founded Sofia SGR, of which he is still President. He also founded a small publishing house, Francesco Brioschi Editore, which specialises in the publication of works on the most relevant current issues such as energy, globalisation and the financial crisis.

He left his university role on 1 November 2008.

During his career he published dozens of articles in international journals, 4 research books and several articles for Il Sole 24 Ore. He was a member of the editorial board of L'Industria and of the AIAF journals, member of EFA (European Financial Association), EARIE (European Association for Research in Industrial Economics), SIE (Italian Society of Economists) and ECGN (European Corporate Governance Network)."

[extract from the 2010 nomination statement]