Born in Biella in 1940, he graduated in Economics and Business at the University of Turin, and was later awarded a Master in Business Administration at the University of Denver (Colorado, USA) and attended the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School.

He joined the Audit division of Arthur Andersen of Milan in 1964, spending his whole career with the multinational auditing and business consultancy: after experience in the Newark branch (New Jersey, USA) he headed the Milan office from 1976 to 1980 and later from 1986 to 1993, the year when he was appointed head of operations for Arthur Andersen in Italy, and, until 2001, member of the European Operating Committee. From 1991 to 1997 he was a member of the Board of Andersen Worldwide Organization.

From June 2000 until the end of his career with Andersen (in December 2001) he was responsible for the Central Mediterranean Region. He was a member of the Board of Assirevi (the association of Italian auditing companies) from 1980 to 2001, and has been a director of numerous listed and unlisted companies.

He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Parmalat (where he is also Chairman of the Internal Audit and Corporate Governance Committee), SIT la Precisa, Cofiber, Erfin and ITS and of the advisory board of Ing Direct Italia. Since 2002 he has taught Accounting and Financial Reporting at the University Bocconi in Milan.