John Elkann
John Jacob Philip "Jaki" Elkann (born
1976) is a
New York-born
Italian industrialist and heir to the automaker
Fiat. He is currently vice chairman of Fiat's board and chairman of its nominating committee.
His mother Margherita, nicknamed Daisy, is a daughter of the late
Gianni Agnelli whose family controls 30 percent of
Fiat. John Elkann has also five half-brothers, a younger brother,
Lapo, and a younger sister,
Ginevra, an aspiring cinematographer. He graduated from the
Politecnico di Torino as a management engineer. He married to Donna Lavinia Borromeo dei Principi di Castagneto on
September 4,
2004.
After the death of his cousin Giovanni Alberto Agnelli, son of
Umberto Agnelli, in
1997 Elkann's grandfather decided John was the best choice in the family as a long-term heir. Like his grandfather, John Elkann joined the Fiat board at the age of 22.
After Umberto Agnelli's death, on
May 30,
2004 John Elkann, who had been serving as a director of Fiat and family holding company IFIL, was named vice chairman of Fiat under new chairman
Luca di Montezemolo, and vice chairman of umbrella family holding company Giovanni Agnelli & C., under new chairman Gianluigi Gabetti who had been chairman of IFIL. As "Jaki" Elkann is over a quarter of a century younger than di Montezemolo, and half a century younger than Gabetti, he is expected to become head of this empire in the future.
