john elkann may not necessarily be a household name but he s certainly associated with a number of corporations with which many people are familiar notably fiat chrysler and ferrari 
although he comes from a long line of industrialists who established the fiat name elkann has established himself as an executive with drive and a vision keep reading to find out more about john elkann s early life education career background and other interests early life and educationjohn elkann is a member of the powerful agnelli family that controlled the italian automaker fiat he was born in new york city in 1976 he traveled extensively as a child and lived in several countries including the united kingdom brazil france and italy this helped him become fluent in four languages italian english spanish and portuguese according to elkann his life was always about being confronted with an environment where you had to adapt 23he studied sciences at the lyc e victor duruy in paris and earned an engineering degree from politecnico di torino in turin italy in 2001 he held a number of internships that allowed him to see how the automotive industry works 4these experiences allowed him to see the factory marketing and sales aspects of the company his background included a headlamp factory in the u k a production line in poland and a car dealership in france by the time he landed a seat on fiat s board in 1997 elkann was already writing his undergraduate thesis on e auctions as a part of general electric s corporate initiatives group 35notable accomplishmentselkann is the chair of automakers stellantis and ferrari he is also a board member chair and chief executive officer ceo of exor a holding company that has a stake in both automakers he ranked in the 1 445th spot on forbes s billionaire s list with a net worth totaling 2 1 billion as of may 18 2022 67he was raised to take part in the family business under his grandfather gianni agnelli s direction as such he became a member of fiat s board in 1997 at the insistence of his grandfather after the death of his cousin giovanni alberto agnelli 8in 2004 elkann became vice chair of fiat a year after his grandfather s death the company was suffering from the poor reputation its vehicles had when it came to reliability elkann worked closely with management and helped to turn the company around he became chair of the company in 2010 at the age of 36 when luca cordero di montezemolo stepped down 7stellantis owns many famous car brands including fiat chrysler dodge jeep peugeot maserati alfa romeo and citroen 9during his time leading the company elkann oversaw the acquisition of chrysler in 2009 he was also instrumental in the 2021 merger of fiat chrysler and peugeot which resulted in a new entity named stellantis the newly formed company has an industrial presence in about 30 countries as well as commercially in 130 markets 107elkann also holds a number of positions outside of his corporate interests in automaking exor owns an interest in juventus football club which gives elkann a stake in the club the league which is based in turin was founded in 1897 and is owned by the agnelli family 117who owns ferrari ferrari is a public company which means it is primarily owned by shareholders however the largest owner of ferrari is the agnelli family through its holding company exor which owns 22 9 of ferrari 12