Enrico Pazzali

Born in 1964 in Milan, Italy.^[1]
In 1990, he graduated in Business Economics from the Bocconi University in Milan.^[2]
From 1990 to 1995 he held marketing positions at Bull HN Information System Italia.^[3]
From 1995 to 1997, he was responsible for the development and implementation of automation at Shell Italia SpA in his role as Retail Automation Manager.^[4]
From 1997 to 2000, he was Sales Manager for Italy for Compaq SpA. During this time, he was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Consortium for the creation of the Turin Bio Technology Park and of COREP – Consortium for Research and Permanent Education of Turin.^[5]
From 2000 to 2002, he was corporate sales director for North-West Italy for Omnitel-Vodafone SpA.^[6]
From 2002-2005, he was the Strategic Marketing and Business Development Director and Group Chief Marketing Officer for Poste Italiane SpA.^[7]
From 2005 to 2006, he was the Central Director of Organisation and Personnel and Resources and Information Systems for the Lombardy Region.^[8]
In 2007, he joined Fiera Milano SpA, where he served as General Manager until he became CEO in 2009.^[9]
From July 2008 to September 2009, he was a member of the Board of Directors of Sogei SpA.^[10]
From April 2009 to 2015, he became Chief Executive Officer of Fiera Milano SpA after having been its Director General from January 2007.^[11] This cemented his friendship with politician Attilio Fontana, then mayor of Varese and currently president of Lombardy since 2018.^[12]^[13]
From May 2012 to August 2013, he was a Director of Nolostand SpA, a Fiera Milano Group company.^[14] In 2016, the company was under partial administration for a few months in connection with having suffered a mafia infiltration between 2013 and 2015. A company belonging to a consortium that is said to have ties to the Cosa Nostra worked almost exclusively with Nolostand SpA and handled setting-up stands located at the exhibition sites of the trade fair organization. They allegedly misappropriated €18 million by using a system of companies producing false invoices which created slush funds and moved the money to Sicily, benefitting Cosa Nostra members.^[15]^[16]^[17]
In 2013, he became Vice President for Strategy at EMECA (European Major Exhibition Centres Association), the umbrella organization for the 22 most important exhibition centres in Europe.^[18]
In 2015, he left his position as CEO at Fiera Milano SpA amidst insufficient financial results and tensions between him and the foundation’s president, Benito Benedini.^[19]^[20]
From April to December 2015, he was a member of the Board of Directors of EUR SpA until he took on the role of CEO of the company until June 2020.^[21] He moved to Rome for this position.^[22]
In 2018, he founded Equalize and remained its main shareholder with a 95% stake. He later claimed to have had no involvement in the company’s alleged dossier-gathering activities.^[23]
In 2019, he returned to Milan and Fiera Milano in his role as president of its foundation.^[24] He was appointed by the president of Lombardy, Attilio Fontana, with his appointment being the result of an agreement among various members of the centre-right, with the green light from Milan’s Democratic Party mayor, Beppe Sala.^[25]
In November 2020, he was re-elected to the Board of Directors of UFI (The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry).^[26]
In 2021, he was awarded the Ambrogino d’Oro^[27] by the Municipality of Milan and the Rosa Camuna by the Region of Lombardy, mostly due to him providing facilities and resources during the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic.^[28]^[29]
In November 2022, he became a member of the Board of Directors of Bocconi University.^[30]
In October 2023, he was re-elected to the Board of Directors of UFI (The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry).^[31]
In 2024, he resigned from his position as president of the Fiera Milano Foundation and from the Board of Directors of Bocconi University.^[32]
In October 2024, it emerged that he allegedly was informed by a senior officer of Milan’s FInancial Police (Milanese Guardia di Finanza) in June 2023 about prosecutor Paolo Storari’s investigation into him. His reaction was said to have been: “Have me arrested, and when I get out I’ll punch him in the face”. Storari was also the prosecutor who tried to prove that Fiera Milano is a public body and pushed for having it put under special administration due to alleged bribes in August 2022.^[33]
In early June 2025, he revoked his voluntary suspension and returned to his position as president of the Fiera Milano Foundation until his term expired on 30 June 2025.^[34] His successor is Giovanni Bozzeti.^[35]
In July 2025, prosecutors described him in their closing notice of their investigation as the mastermind and promoter of the criminal conspiracy surrounding the Equalize case. They conclude that especially due to his role at the Fiera Milano Foundation and dense network of relationships and acquaintances, he was the driving force behind acquiring clients. The prosecutors list 202 charges in connection with the case, with the main charges being criminal conspiracy to unauthorized access to a computer or telematic system, corruption, unlawful interception of computer communications, unlawful possession and installation of equipment and other devices designed to intercept computer or telematic communications, disclosure of classified information, and aiding and abetting.^[36]
Also in July 2025, the request to put him under house arrest was rejected by Milan’s Court of Reviews.^[37]
In November 2025, he claimed that he never took money, never knew about the existence of secret dossiers and was betrayed by CEO Carmine Gallo.[38] This is in contrast to Samuele Calamucci, Equalize’s hacker, who stated in November 2025 that Pazzali requested confidential data on La Russa, the President of the Senate.[39]