Paolo Petrocelli (PhD-EMBA) is a cultural manager, university lecturer and journalist.
Petrocelli has gained many years of experience in the field of cultural, artistic and music management at national and international level, with a versatility of functions and roles that have led him to stand out for a particularly innovative professional profile.
A former Member of the Board of Directors of the Fondazione Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, the Fondazione Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena and the Conservatorio di Musica Benedetto Marcello in Venice, after serving as Assistant to the Superintendent alongside the current Chief Executive of RAI, Carlo Fuortes, at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Petrocelli made a decisive contribution, as Director General, to the relaunch of the Accademia Stauffer in Cremona, one of Italy’s most prestigious music institutions, through the creation of the international development project Stauffer Center for Strings.
Since 2023, Petrocelli has held the position of Superintendent of the Dubai Opera House in the United Arab Emirates.
In 2023, he was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum for his continued commitment to supporting the arts and culture internationally.
In 2022 he was selected by the think tank Friends of Europe among the 40 most influential young personalities in Europe and named “European Young Leader“.
Fortune Italia included Paolo Petrocelli in the prestigious list of the top 40 Italian talents under 40 for 2022, as the first cultural manager ever to be selected.
Cultural and music diplomacy
Particularly committed to the field of cultural diplomacy and institutional and international relations, Petrocelli is Founder and President of EMMA for Peace (Euro-Mediterranean Music Academy), one of the largest international organisations for the promotion of music diplomacy between Europe and the Middle East (of which Riccardo Muti is Honorary President), Co-Founder and Honorary President of the Italian Youth Association for UNESCO, the largest youth network within the UNESCO system, Director of the cultural programmes of the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates and Cultural Advisor to Coldplay, the British band among the most celebrated in the world.
Petrocelli has combined an academic background in the arts and humanities with advanced training in economics and management, earning a PhD in cultural economics at IULM University in Milan, an Executive MBA at SDA Bocconi, a degree in humanities and musicology at Sapienza University of Rome, a degree in musicology at Middlesex University in London, and a diploma in violin at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia in Rome.
A passionate lecturer and researcher, Petrocelli has been a researcher at Yale University and at the MIT Media Lab of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. He is currently a researcher at the metaLAB at Harvard University and a lecturer at Bocconi University, the LUISS Business School in Rome, the Sole24ore Business School, John Cabot University, the Accademia Teatro alla Scala in Milan and ISPI (Institute for International Political Studies).