Guido Venosta, entrepreneur and manager in the Third Sector

Guido Venosta, born in 1911, graduated in Economics from Cambridge at St. John’s College, where he studied under John Maynard Keynes, and in Law at Pavia.

He was the most introverted of the three Venosta brothers. During the war, he had served as a cavalry captain. He worked at Pirelli – where his father, Giuseppe, the “renowned Pirelli engineer,” had been Central Director and Board Member – throughout his entire professional life, from 1939 to 1977. During this period, he held high-profile positions both in Italy and in Great Britain, where he was assigned, for seven years from 1956 to 1963, as head of Pirelli Ltd, the English branch of the company headquartered in London [1].

Upon returning to Italy, in 1966 he was commissioned by Franco Brambilla, then CEO of Pirelli, to collaborate with researchers from the Milan Cancer Institute to launch the Italian Association for Cancer Research (today the Italian Foundation for Cancer Research – AIRC), which had been founded the previous year by Umberto Veronesi and Giuseppe Della Porta, with the support of Aldo Borletti and Camilla Falck.

He then began working full-time for the association with great dedication and enthusiasm – especially since his mother, Argia, like his father Giuseppe, had died of cancer – sharing a small office with two colleagues while developing AIRC. Under his leadership, AIRC became the largest private funding body in Italy for cancer research.

Fundraising initiatives that made history in the nonprofit world – such as “Oranges for Health” and “Azaleas for Research,” which were sold in public squares on Mother’s Day – owe their origin to the work carried out by his grandfather within the association. He served first as vice president and then as president from 1976 to 1996.

He was also responsible for the creation and organization of AIRC’s Regional Committees, one of the strengths of what had become a foundation that, first under his visionary leadership and later by continuously adapting his work to the changing times, raised hundreds of millions of euros to fight a terrible scourge.

In parallel to AIRC, in 1982 my grandfather founded the Italian Foundation for Cancer Research (FIRC), the “stronghold” of AIRC, an asset-based institution designed to secure the future of oncological research beyond the financial flow from membership fees.

As president of FIRC, he promoted and realized three highly significant initiatives, among others:

• The establishment of FIRC Research Units (the first initiative of its kind in Italy): specialized scientific teams operating on advanced oncological themes, established and directly funded by the Foundation within the country’s major research institutions;
• The creation of the biennial “Guido Venosta Award”, reserved for researchers who have particularly distinguished themselves in developing new therapeutic approaches to neoplasms. This award, which also includes a 50,000-euro scholarship, was designed as a strong signal to draw public attention to the tangible results of research and was presented by the President of the Republic during a solemn ceremony at the Quirinale;
• The donation, in 1996, of two billion lire over ten years to the University of Milan for the establishment of a top-tier Chair of Medical Oncology – the first historic private contribution to an Italian university for the creation of an integrated teaching program at the highest academic level [2].

Returning to the association, the figures speak for themselves: during his presidency, AIRC reached 1,700,000 members (the highest in Italy among nonprofit organizations), disbursed 285 billion lire for research, and awarded over 2,500 scholarships amounting to more than 25 billion lire. FIRC could count on an asset base of around 100 billion lire.

In 2021, AIRC and FIRC merged, and the figures from the latest financial report of the AIRC Foundation are truly impressive: 17 Regional Committees, 20,000 volunteers, 4,500,000 members, and an asset base of 137 million euros. In the era of immediate, global communication, he made sure that its presence was felt on every possible channel: over 13,000,000 website visitors, more than 1,100,000 subscribers and followers on the main social media platforms, a significant presence in traditional media such as print, television, and radio, and the use of cutting-edge technologies like podcasts and YouTube webinars that garnered thousands of views, interviews, and citations [3].

Milan rewarded him with the “Ambrogino d’Oro”, enshrining him among the city’s and nation’s distinguished citizens in the Monumentale’s Hall of Fame, and in 2003, a street – an alley off Viale Sarca – was dedicated to him, with the plaque commemorating his role as a “pioneer of the nonprofit sector”.

In a letter from Salvatore Carrubba, the assessor for “culture, museums, and international relations” of the City of Milan confirming the street’s dedication, he is described as the “illustrious founder of the Association for Cancer Research.”

“If Italian oncological research is now at the international forefront, a great credit is due to Guido Venosta.”
– Umberto Veronesi and Giuseppe Della Porta, Fondamentale, April 5, 1998

Guido Venosta also received other important awards and recognitions, including:

• His appointment as Grand Officer of the Italian Republic in 1988;
• The Gold Medal of the Ministry of Health for Civil Merits in 1990;
• The Fecs – Pezcoller Recognition Award for Contribution to Oncology in 1994.

Having stepped down from his executive role at AIRC in 1994 and at FIRC in 1996, Guido Venosta served as Honorary President of both organizations until his death, which occurred in Milan in 1998. He was also, for many years, a member of the Board of Directors of the National Cancer Institute and a member of the Board of the European Institute of Oncology.

His commitment was not limited solely to AIRC. With a family tradition of liberal ideas, he joined the PLI (Italian Liberal Party) and, having run for local office, served as a city councilor in Milan as part of the administration under three mayors: Pietro Bucalossi (1964 – 1970), Aldo Aniasi (1970 – 1980), and Carlo Tognoli (1980 – 1986).
During that period, he also represented the Municipality on the Board of Directors of the Piccolo Teatro in Milan, which at the time was led by Paolo Grassi, Nina Vinchi, and Giorgio Strehler.

[1] V. Archivio Pirelli, consulted with thanks to Marco Tronchetti Provera
[2] P.P. Preti, “Con il contributo FIRC l’Oncologia sale in cattedra”, in Fondamentale. Notiziario AIRC, June 1996.
[3] V. Bilancio sociale AIRC 2021 (bilanciosociale.airc.it), p. 44.
Other sources: Giuseppe Caprotti archive and AIRC archive.

Below: other certificates received by Guido Venosta.