Urbano Cairo

Mr. Cairo has served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of RCS MediaGroup. He acquired 59.7% of the Company through a full voluntary tender and exchange offer, which prevailed over an offer from IMH and valued the Group as a whole at over 500 million euros.

Mr. Cairo graduated from Bocconi University in Milan with a degree in Business and Economics. He began his career in 1981 at the Fininvest Group, which was followed by a position at Publitalia ’80 where he became Deputy Director-General. In 1991, he accepted the role of Chief Executive Officer at Mondadori Pubblicità.

In 1995, he founded Cairo Pubblicità S.p.A., an advertising broker that started by selling space for certain RCS magazines. In 1997, he expanded the Group’s structure with the launch of Cairo Due S.p.A., which manages advertising sales in innovative and alternative media, reaching an overall turnover of about 50 million euros. In 1998, Mr. Cairo continued to expand, setting up Cairo TV S.p.A. (following the acquisition of 100% of Tele+ Pubblicità from the Tele+ Group), a broker dedicated to analog and digital pay-TV that in just three years tripled its pre-acquisition turnover.

In 1999, he acquired all of the shares of Editoriale Giorgio Mondadori, the prestigious publishing house that prints some of Italy’s most popular and sophisticated monthly publications such as Bell’Italia, Bell’Europa, Airone, In Viaggio, Gardenia, and Arte e Antiquariato. Thanks to structural changes and a new editorial policy, the company quickly reached breakeven compared to a pre-acquisition loss of 5 million euros, while keeping headcount unchanged and maintaining the high quality of the publications.


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