About
About a tight knit team with a passion.
We are an investment company operating in the fashion industry, providing full business support and acceleration consulting services to startups and enterprises, unleashing the power of digital technology.
We assist our clients in all aspects of their business, to achieve growth and valorization.
Since 2014, Fashion Technology Accelerator Milan’s aim is to advance the fashion industry through innovative business models and the use of digital processes. Today we are part of an international network with the main office in Milan and a subsidiary in London.
Being highly industry-specific and with a global reach, we select and work with the best players worldwide. For this reason, in 2018 Fashion Technology Accelerator has been chosen by Hatcher+ as their global partner to invest in fashion technology startups.
Mentors with experience are here for you
Experience is the key.
Our dedicated network of mentors and experts is here to help.
From fashion to technology, from finance to investments, every aspect of the life of a startup is fully covered.
Meet your next advisors here.
Silvia Zancarli is graduated in Business Administration with a major in Strategy and Marketing. She has been working for several years in Communication and Media Agencies where she reached the position of Strategy Director. She had been course leader for 7 years for the BAH Fashion Marketing and Communication held at IED (Milan) and validated by the University of Westminster. She is a business and Marcom consultant and expert in crowdfunding, having worked with Ulule, the Europe’s biggest reward based crowdfunding platform. She is mentoring several Start-ups, some within the Wearsustain Network and recently joined SUPSI (University School based in Lugano, CH) as Course Leader for the MAS in Fashion Innovation.
As Head of Marketing, Communication & Digital of e-PITTI.com, Anna coordinates the digital and marketing strategies of the Online Fairs Project of Pitti Immagine including the business development activities related to it. After graduating in Foreign Languages for International Communication, living between Italy and Spain, she developed a career of 7 years working in the Digital and Communication Department of Benetton Group, covering both corporate and product communication for its brands.
She then brought those skills to Pitti Immagine and FieraDigitale taking on the continuous development of the fairs’ digitalization for one of the leading fashion trade show realities globally.
Lanita has 30+ years in the Retail industry, including “multi category” senior merchant positions for Holt Renfrew Luxury department stores, and as a Managing Director for Hugo Boss.
In addition to her experience working for internationally renowned fashion companies, Lanita has a deep understanding of all facets of business in the fashion industry in North America in particular, and utilizes this expertise to consult for the development of Brands in this market.
Lanita is also a member of the Board of Governors for OCAD University of Art and Design.
Shiyi XU is a cultural bridge between China and the rest of the world.
She is an expert of strategic cross-cultural management thanks to an academic and professional life spent in Moscow – Russia, Madrid – Spain, Shanghai – China and Milan – Italy. She fluently speaks 5 languages: Russian, Spanish, English, Italian and Chinese.
10+ years’ experience in international strategy and business development for various companies and government institutions in Moscow, Madrid, Shanghai and Milan.
Business Economic Bachelor Degree at MSU Lomonosov (Moscow), Master Degree at Instituo Marangoni, Executive EMiLUX Master at ESSEC/SDA Bocconi.
She is passionate about fashion and digital.
Currently Strategist for luxury and fashion in Sketchin – the biggest design-thinking studio in Europe.
Ulrika is the General Manager of Lancome Italy and has a 20+ years experience in international business development and marketing in the Beauty Arena. Her expertise stems from working in France, USA and Italy with product development for consumer brands Maybelline NY, L’Oréal Paris, and business development for luxury brands Giorgio Armani, Viktor & Rolf, YSL and Lancome. Her expertise is in consumer centric thinking, brand building, communication, business development and innovation. She is particularly interested in Diversity & Happy Management, Wellbeing & Beauty, Innovation & Digital.
Andrey has 15+ years of experience in product design, hardware, and innovation technology. He is the Co-Founder and CEO at ELSE Corp, a virtual retail company. He has been the Business Intelligence Manager for Zero9 and the CTO of “Moda e Tecnologia”.
Ishwari is the Fashion Tech Project Officer at Centre for Fashion Enterprise, London’s pioneering fashion business incubator. She has 9+ years of experience in design, styling, branding, digital marketing and social media, from hi-end fashion and tech startups, non-profits, SMEs, to high street and luxury lifestyle brands. She currently runs CFE’s fashion tech acceleration programmes & events while focusing on creating a thriving fashion technology ecosystem in London.
Mary built up her expertise in Marketing and Communications mainly working for sports and sportswear brands such as Nike, Fila, Torino 2006 and adidas. While at adidas, she covered the role of Head of Brand Marketing, giving a crucial and increasing role to Digital & Social Media; she later transitioned to Marketing Operations and Business Development, re-designing and coordinating the go-to-market process for South Europe. Mary has past and current experiences with start-up companies both in technology and design furniture.
Salvo has been a Professor of Strategy, Management & Technology Department at Bocconi University and Strategic Department at SDA Bocconi, since 1981. Since 1992 until 2013 Founder and Director of Fashion & Luxury Knowledge Center, SDA Bocconi. Since 2008 until 2013 Scientific and Board Executive Director (General Management & Corporate Relations) at Milano Fashion Institute. Independent Board Director at Reda1865 (Wool Fabrics). Partner and Board Director at 1TrueID (IoT). Founder and Ceo at SINAPSI, Management consultancy in Fashion & Beauty. Author of many articles and books, among others: “The Strategic Management of the Fashion Companies”, Etas, 2002; “The Responsible Fashion Company”, Greenleaf, 2015.
Chief Marketing and Communications Director with proven experience gained in Luxury, Fashion, Beauty, Art, Retail and Lifestyle for companies including Superga, Trussardi, Salvatore Ferragamo and Value Retail. Excellent knowledge of international strategy, business organization and management, business plan and income statements, brand positioning and management, marketing and integrated communication, licensing, fashion retail and cool hunting.
Author of the book The Luxury …. Magic & Marketing – Present and Future of Essential Superfluous (Ed. Franco Angeli – 5 editions: 2006, 2007, 2008, 2013, 2015).
Gabriele has spent 35 years in the fashion world in industrial companies covering roles from the commercial director till the managing director. His last experience in China has completed the wide experience in international fashion business.
He invested in the chinese market because he guesses the italian companies need an italian high profile culture and professionality to support their activity in this part of the world following the great change of this country.
Entrepreneur and consultant, Luigi launched several businesses in creative services, digital transformation, and mobile. He is now leading Conflux: a user experience research and design consulting firm with a focus on UX and Conversion rate optimisation with a focus on Fashion, Luxury, Telco, Media, Automotive, and Finance
Simone has 10+ years of experience in IT and has mostly worked with API and developers’ platforms for companies across Europe and USA. He is currently the CEO at Marketcloud, backend as a service for e-commerce applications. Not the tipical dev, due to his activity, he’s able to setup digital strategies for development and go to market of new projects.
Matteo has 10+ years experience in the digital design world with a special focus on branding and user experience. He is co-founder of the web agency glueglue™ and the multimodal transport platform Waynaut. He works with companies from various fields, from the ICT to the food and beverage to the arts and culture.
Fabian has 10+ years of experience in branding and user interface design. He co-founded glueglue™ in 2006, a web design and communication agency specialized in branding. He also works as an associate and mentor in startups like Flower Burger® and Waynaut, taking his knowledge from product design and applying it to print design and web interfaces.
Paolo has been a member of the boards of investment companies, banks, and fund management companies. A former Executive Manager of important Italian banks, including Banco di Napoli and Banco di Sicilia, in addition to CEO of Diners Club Europe, Paolo is the Founder and CEO of Captha, which provides training in the banking and financing sector, and Novenero, a corporate finance advisory company. He has a degree in Economics from the University of Siena.
Marie-Pierre is the Business Cluster head and founding Program Leader of the Master in Luxury Brand Management in Domus Academy.
Her 20+ years of experience span from Management Consulting, to Strategic Marketing & Branding and Post Graduate Education. Design-thinking, customer empathy, actionable insights and business viability are her mantra. Her widely transversal background makes her at ease both in highly strategic and operational contexts and in a wide range of lifestyle industries, among which luxury and fashion.
Leonardo Raineri is the head of the Miroglio Innovation Program (MIP), a program created with the aim of promoting and facilitate innovation within the companies of the Miroglio Group. It deals with strategic and methodological development of innovation, research and evaluation of innovative solutions for the world of fashion (design, product development, retail, marketing, etc.) in order to facilitate its possible implementation within the company. He is responsible for the Corporate Entrepreneurship activity that gave birth and followed the first start-up of the Miroglio Group: The Color Soup (web platform for printing fabric on demand).
Roberta has 20+ years of experience in the field of fashion, within both product design and sales. She is head of business of Private Label for the Miroglio Group, developing the brand Fiorella Rubino and the retail strategy for Elena Mirò. She is also an active business angel.
Alessandro has 10+ years of experience in online media, marketing, and communication projects, with a strong focus on luxury, digital communication, e-commerce, and digital strategies definition. He is the Global Digital Communication Manager at Woolrich and actively collaborates with leading universities on topics such as brand strategy, design, and advertising.
Lara has worked for 10+ years for leading fashion brands such as Kenzo, Bottega Veneta, Alexander McQueen, Valentino, and Versace, dealing with accessories licensing, marketing, and communication strategies at an international level.
Andrea has 20+ years of experience in digital marketing in luxury industry. He is currently the WW Communication and Marketing Director at Gilmar. He has also been Global Head of Digital, Ecommerce & CRM at Trussardi and Head of Global Corporate Digital Marketing in Tod’s for several years.
Stefania has 15+ years of experience working for fashion and luxury international brands such as vente-privee, Tommy Hilfiger, Pirelli PZero, Fossil, Morellato and L’Oréal, defining marketing and communication strategies. Business developer and creator of a digital start up for the beauty sector, she is currently Marketing & Sales Retailers EMEA Director at Intercos
Daniela has 15+ years of experience as Brand & Merchandiser Manager, Licensing Manager, and Brand Strategist in Dolce & Gabbana and in Gianni Versace. As a consultant she has developed tailored strategies in retail, as well as implemented business development activities for the launch of new products.
Global Digital, E-commerce & CRM Director at KIKO Milano. Startup & blockchain / crypto advisor and investor. 15 years of international business experience between Europe and Asia (12 years lived in Asia). Responsible for defining and implementing KIKO Milano global Digital, ecommerce, social and CRM strategy. Aiming at building a comprehensive omni-channel customer experience, with expertise ranging from e-commerce business development, off and online media strategy, off and online CRM integration to in-store digital projects and digital organization and evangelization. Entrepreneur-minded, he also founded several start-ups and continues to act today as an angel advisor and investor in start-up companies, and accelerators incubators (EGI Booster / Barcelona, TheFamily/France, Angelvest/Hong-Kong, China).
Alessandro is Professor and Associate Chair of the graduate program in Luxury and Fashion Management at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). Before starting his academic career in 2012, Alessandro worked for more than a decade in the luxury sector covering roles in international business development and marketing. Alessandro’s areas of expertise, and focus of his academic research, are luxury brand building, luxury consumer behavior and innovative models of global distribution for haut de gamme goods and services
Gabriele has 10+ years international experience in Consulting (Accenture), Yachting (Azimut Benetti) & Luxury Retail (Kering Group). Naturally passionate about innovation, after his MBA he joined the Kering Group, working within the WW Retail teams of Bottega Veneta (first) and Brioni (currently) to expedite their digital transformation at the intersection of business & technology. He also serves as equity partner of iStarter.
Barbara has 25+ years of experience in sales and marketing departments of global companies such as Mediaset, Beiersdorf, Coty Inc., and at Montblanc (Richemont Group) where she was CEO/Managing Director for the Italian subsidiary for 10 years.
Julien has 15+ years in the sportswear and streetwear business, having worked internationally between Europe, Asia and U.S., with a deep knowledge of trends and product development. Julien has worked for brands likes Sir Benni Miles, Zoo York, Marc Ecko, Avirex.
Graduated in Mechanical Engineering (MSC) with an MBA, Carlo has more than 20 years of experience; he has developed a strong expertise in the Management of Fashion Business as CEO with a solid base in Operations Management the Function he started from. He experienced different situations from Start-up, to TurnAround and Restructuring.
Gabriele has 20+ years of experience in online media, mainly regarding new technologies and Internet networking. He focuses his activity on digital communication, e-business, editorial management and digital communication strategies. He is currently Global E-Commerce Director for Giorgio Armani. Previously, he was Global Digital & E-Commerce Director for Dolce & Gabbana, Benetton and Moncler.
Jarvis has 15+ years of experience as a journalist and digital communication consultant. He has been the Global Digital PR Manager of Tod’s for 3 years and is currently the Head of Digital at Pinko. He’s the author of “Luxury 2.0, the new digital strategy of luxury brands” (Lupetti Edizioni – 2010) and “Luxury 2.0, digital evolution” (Lupetti Edizioni – 2013).
Simone has over 15 years of international, cross-industry experience in digital transformation.
He co-founded several startups, including FashionBI in Hong Kong.
Over 10 years of service design experience, defining successful product strategies and developing business opportunities.
He has been Director of Product & Marketing and member of the Leadership team @ Cerved Group for 5yrs.
He is now Managing Director of Cerved ON_ Marketing Services.
Board Member of Spazio Dati, ClickADV and ProWebConsulting (part of Cerved Group)
Anna is a fashion designer and the Head of the Fashion Cluster at Domus Academy. Before that she was in Singapore for 4 years where she worked as the Head of the School of Fashion and Design at MDIS. Anna received a Ph.D. in Design (Textiles) from Politecnico di Milano with a project in collaboration with Loro Piana. She co-founded the brand IL SISTEMA DEGLI OGGETTI.
Licia and Francio are fashion designers in charge of two proprietary brands, L’F Shoes and Licia Florio, for which they ideate and create the complete line of products sold on ilflor.com. They have a strong background in fashion, art, and internet marketing, actively collaborating as consultants for product development, Art Direction, and communication strategies with major companies in fashion.
Gianluca M. Girard is the E-commerce General Manager at ALGHANIM INDUSTRIES with responsibility of P&L and end-to-end digital on line business in Kuwait and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Prior to joining Alghanim Industries, Gianluca worked as e-commerce director at several companies, including TALLY WEiJL (Switzerland), GUESS (Switzerland) and BVLGARI (Italy, US). Notable is his global experience of 20+ years in E-commerce and Internet, including the responsibility of New Technologies (Bvlgari) after his initial career with Accenture.
Francesco is Chief Digital Officer at Brunello Cucinelli. He also was CEO of FieraDigitale, a company he co-founded with Pitti Immagine, the creators of the project e-PITTI.com. Francesco has spent 10+ years in the digital arena, founding some of the most important interactive agencies creating and implementing digital projects for several companies as part of Fortune Global 500.
