Francesco Avanzini is the new president of GS1 Italy

Francesco Avanzini is the new president of GS1 Italy, the association that brings together 42.000 businesses and develops global standards, solutions and services for the automated and reliable sharing of data between businesses and with consumers, to improve process efficiency and enable digital transformation.

Digitalisation, supply chain and sustainability: the pillars of the future

In his new role at GS1 Italy, which will cover the three-year period 2026-2028, Avanzini succeeds Francesco Del Porto. He will be supported as vice-presidents by Aldo Sutter, sole director of Gruppo Sutter, and Alessandro d’Este , managing director of Gruppo Veronesi, representing industry, as well as Domenico Brisigotti, president of Coop Italia, for distribution.

“It is with profound pride, but above all with a strong sense of responsibility towards our business community, that I accepted the role of President of GS1 Italy,” declared Francesco Avanzini. “Digitalisation, supply chain efficiency and sustainability remain the pillars on which we will continue to build our future. In the next three-year period, in particular, we will work on integrating the major projects launched in recent years, such as the transition to the GS1 standard qr-code, the widespread adoption of Edi and logistics efficiency improvements.”

“Our objective,” Avanzini continues, “is to accelerate the implementation of these supply chain solutions, integrating them into our companies’ strategies. We also face the challenge of Agentic AI and Agentic Commerce, where data quality will make GS1 standards increasingly a trusted infrastructure, essential for enabling new artificial intelligence systems to correctly identify products, companies and information and generate increasingly automated and secure processes.”

Francesco Avanzini’s curriculum vitae

Francesco Avanzini, born in 1963 and from Verona, has worked in FMCG markets for over 30 years, with experience among both industrial producers and major distributors, at national and international level, and since 2023 has been director general of Consorzio Nazionale Conad.

After graduating in Economics and Statistics in 1987, Avanzini held various marketing and sales roles at leading food companies such as Aia, Barilla, Arena, Unichips and Gruppo Fini. In 2009, he joined Consorzio Nazionale Conad as Commercial Director, subsequently becoming its Operations Director and, finally, General Director.

Avanzini is also chairman of the board of directors of AgeCore, a commercial alliance between five major European distributors (Conad, Eroski, Colruyt, Coop Suisse and Kaufland).

This article was translated from the original Italian version with the assistance of artificial intelligence. In case of discrepancies, please refer to the original Italian version.