Planet Smart City appoints Alessandro Marchesini as Chief Digital Strategy Officer

Alessandro Marchesini has been appointed Chief Digital Strategy Officer at Planet Smart City, a global leader in smart affordable housing. Based in Planet’s London office, he will drive growth in the Group’s digital business internationally through the development of new products and services. Alessandro will focus on three key areas: consolidating the digital service offering in Planet’s smart affordable housing solutions; adding new value to the SaaS (software-as-a-service) offering dedicated to real estate developers for new construction projects; and defining digital products capable of increasing the management efficiency of large residential complexes.

Gianni Savio, CEO of Planet Smart City, said: "Digital technologies and systems are central to our Group's business model: they characterise our real estate development projects (now ten in total, encompassing more than ten thousand homes, in Brazil, the United States and India) and are the subject of the consultancy services that Planet Smart City provides to developers and managers of large real estate complexes around the world. Alessandro's experience will help position us as a leader among real estate developers, internationally, capable of pioneering the integration of digital technologies within development projects, both in terms of hardware and software. This will be achieved through three objectives: to enhance the user experience of residents, to create new sources of revenue generated by the services we are going to offer, and to provide solutions capable of optimising the management of large real estate assets."

Alessandro Marchesini said: "Joining the Group at this time of strong growth gives me the opportunity to leverage my skills and leadership experience gained in international projects. I believe that this background can contribute to redesigning the digital customer experience of residents, not only in the districts designed by Planet Smart City but worldwide, and the technological tools that the company makes available to developers and asset managers. To this end, we will have to work in synergy with partners and market players, positioning Planet Smart City as an integrator and distributor of its own and third-party digital services. All this to achieve our ultimate goal: to improve the lives of citizens and contribute to human, social and technological progress in the urban environments in which we live and operate.”

Alessandro, 44, was born in Rimini, Italy, and holds a degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Bologna, and completed studies at the University of California, San Diego. He has a Global MBA from Imperial College Business School in London, which also recognised him with the Dean's List Award for Academic Excellence. He is a member of the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

He trained professionally in London and the US working for start-ups, scale-ups and Silicon Valley tech giants. After working in the entertainment software industry at EIDOS, he moved on to Openwave, one of the creators of the first protocol for internet browsing on mobile devices (WAP). He subsequently worked in SaaS and, in recent years, held the position of Senior Director of SaaS Cloud at Oracle, coordinating the management of five product lines and international teams spread across India, Poland, UK, Canada and the United States (California and Florida).

Alessandro has a strong track record in managing digital groups in the US, EMEA and APAC regions and built a track record in launching new products for existing ecosystems, particularly for SaaS B2B and B2B2C applications. He has also handled technology, product and human resources due diligence for numerous M&A transactions.