Two Executive Appointments, One Pivotal Moment
In January 2020, Lamborghini reshuffled two critical positions on its board of management. Giovanni Perosino, a marketing executive with deep roots in the Volkswagen Group, stepped into the Chief Commercial Officer role effective January 1. Federico Foschini, who previously held that position, moved laterally to Chief Procurement Officer while retaining his board seat. Perosino reported directly to Chairman and CEO Stefano Domenicali.
Viewed from 2025, the appointment looks different than it did when Lamborghini first confirmed it. Perosino left Sant’Agata Bolognese after roughly two years, served as Chief Marketing Officer at ITA Airways through the end of 2023, and was then appointed as Maserati’s global CMO in January 2024. A report from WWD, dated December 2025, indicates that Perosino is slated to move to Gucci as Senior VP Marketing. That trajectory, from supercar boardroom to airline to a struggling rival to luxury fashion, tells a story about talent circulation in the Italian luxury ecosystem that few competitors bother to examine.
The Urus Mandate
Perosino walked into a company riding a wave it could barely keep up with. The Urus, launched in late 2017, had effectively doubled Lamborghini’s annual production volume and rewritten the brand’s customer demographics. His mandate, according to Lamborghini, was to consolidate that growth and sustain the sales records the Super SUV generated.
The Urus was already a proven success before Perosino arrived. His job was less about creating momentum and more about preventing it from dissipating, building out the commercial infrastructure around a brand that suddenly needed to manage twice as many customer relationships, dealer touchpoints, and after-sales interactions as it did three years earlier. His tenure at Lamborghini involved contributions across global business development, including sales, after-sales, dealer pre-owned programs, financial services, classic cars, mobility services, premium CRM, and retail. In practical terms, he was asked to turn a boutique supercar operation into something that could handle SUV-scale volume without losing the exclusivity that makes people want a Lamborghini in the first place.
For anyone who bought a Lamborghini between 2020 and 2022, the commercial systems Perosino helped shape likely touched their purchase experience, whether through the dealer network, CRM communications, or the financial services options available at the point of sale.
An Audi and VW Pedigree Applied to Sant’Agata
Perosino’s career path before Lamborghini reads like a deliberate escalation through the Volkswagen Group’s brand hierarchy. He started outside the auto industry entirely, working at advertising agency DMB&B in Milan in 1991 before moving to Bacardi-Martini for international marketing in Amsterdam. From 2001, he held marketing and communication leadership roles at the Fiat Group, first for Lancia, then FIAT, and eventually as VP of Marketing Communication for Fiat Group Automobiles. He joined VW’s headquarters in Wolfsburg in 2010, then moved to Audi in Ingolstadt in 2014.
That background mattered. Lamborghini needed someone who understood how to operate within the VW Group’s corporate structure while protecting a fiercely independent identity. Perosino’s experience at Audi, a brand that balances mass-premium scale with aspirational positioning, was arguably the most relevant credential. Yet the challenge at Lamborghini is that its commercial playbook cannot simply borrow from Audi’s. Lamborghini sells scarcity and spectacle; Audi sells refinement and technology at volume. Translating between those two languages requires a specific kind of fluency, and the brevity of Perosino’s tenure raises reasonable questions about whether that translation fully clicked.
Consider how Ferrari manages its commercial leadership, where executives tend to stay longer and the brand’s commercial philosophy remains almost doctrinally consistent. Lamborghini, operating within the VW Group’s broader talent rotation patterns, moves people more frequently. Whether that helps or hurts long-term brand coherence is a question enthusiasts should watch closely.
Federico Foschini: The Quiet Constant
While Perosino’s appointment drew the headline, Foschini’s move to Chief Procurement Officer deserves more attention than it typically receives. Foschini began his career at Lamborghini as an intern in 1998 and joined full-time the following year. Over two decades, he progressed through purchasing, project management, and a promotion to Director of Project Management in 2008 before becoming Sales Director (later CCO) in 2015. Today, he serves as Chief Marketing and Sales Officer, a role that effectively brings his career full circle.
The procurement function at a company like Lamborghini is anything but routine. Every bespoke Ad Personam specification, every limited-edition material choice, every component sourced for the Revuelto’s hybrid architecture or the Temerario’s twin-turbo V8 passes through procurement’s oversight. Foschini’s institutional memory, spanning the Gallardo era through the Urus explosion, gives him a perspective on Lamborghini’s supply chain that no outside hire could replicate quickly. For buyers who care about the quality and availability of customization options, the person running procurement matters as much as the person running marketing. Foschini’s continued presence on the board represents a kind of operational continuity that balances the more visible executive rotations happening around him.
What Perosino’s Path Reveals About Lamborghini’s Commercial Evolution
Perosino’s post-Lamborghini career offers a useful lens for understanding how the brand’s commercial needs evolved. His move to ITA Airways and then to Maserati suggests a professional drawn to brand-building challenges rather than to any single industry. One report suggests Maserati is facing challenges with its electric vehicle rollout, including delays for the GranTurismo Folgore and Grecale Folgore, and a potential delay or cancellation of the electric Quattroporte sedan. That context makes Perosino’s current assignment look like another turnaround brief rather than a victory lap.
Lamborghini’s commercial trajectory since his departure speaks for itself. The Urus continues to anchor production volumes, the Revuelto launched to immediate allocation backlogs, and the Temerario promises to extend that momentum. The commercial infrastructure Perosino helped build during his tenure continues to function, even as the people running it change.
The broader lesson for enthusiasts is straightforward: executive appointments matter, but at a brand this tightly focused, the product and the engineering culture tend to outlast any individual commercial strategy. Lamborghini’s competitive position against Ferrari, McLaren, and Porsche depends far more on whether the Temerario’s twin-turbo V8 delivers at 10,000 rpm than on who signs the marketing briefs. The 2020 reshuffle was a smart organizational move for its moment. Five years later, the cars did the talking.
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