Alfredo Altavilla

Alfredo Altavilla does not speak about the car industry in abstractions. He talks in timelines, margins and hard constraints. It is a habit formed over decades inside the machinery of European manufacturing, and sharpened under the exacting leadership of Sergio Marchionne.

Altavilla spent much of his career at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, where he combined operational leadership with deal-making at scale. As Chief Operating Officer for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Head of Global Business Development, he was closely involved in some of the industry’s defining moments. From the Fiat–Chrysler merger to complex transatlantic negotiations that reshaped the group’s future. Before that, he led businesses including Iveco and Fiat Powertrain Technologies, building a reputation for execution rather than theatre.

Today, as Special Advisor for Europe to BYD, he sits between two industrial worlds that no longer move at the same speed. Having worked in China as early as the 1990s, he has watched its automotive sector evolve from peripheral player to technological frontrunner. His conclusion is blunt. The real gap is not just in electric drivetrains, but in how cars are conceived. Software first, hardware second and in the industrial systems that support them.

In his telling, the European challenge is as much structural as technological. Product cycles are longer. Infrastructure is thinner. Decision-making is more constrained. Meanwhile, companies like BYD operate with a level of vertical integration and engineering intensity that compresses timelines and resets expectations. The result is not simply competition, but a shift in the terms of the industry itself.

Alfredo Altavilla was formerly Executive Chairman of ITA Airways and Chairman of Recordati. He currently serves as Senior Advisor to CVC Capital Partners in Europe, and is a board member of several companies, including Enerpac Tool Group, MSX, Ambienta SGR, and Proma Group. Additionally, he serves on the Investment Committee of Vasuky, a Tech VC fund sponsored by Rothschild&Co.