32 Facts About Renzo Rosso

Renzo Rosso was born on 1955 and is an Italian entrepreneur and a businessman.

In 1977, having increased the company's production, Renzo Rosso wanted to leave and start a new business on his own.

The brand name Diesel was chosen because 'diesel' was considered to be the 'alternative fuel' in the oil crisis, and Renzo Rosso and Goldschmied liked the idea of their brand being perceived as an alternative jeans brand in contrast to the prevalent casual wear brands.

In 1985 Renzo Rosso took complete control of the company, by trading his shares in the Genius Group, which was then the parent company of Diesel, for Goldschmied's remaining shares in Diesel.

In 2000, Renzo Rosso made his first acquisition when he purchased Staff International.

When Renzo Rosso acquired Staff International, the company was already partnering with Martin Margiela on the production of its collections.

In 2002 Renzo Rosso purchased the majority of the fashion house Maison Margiela.

In 1984 Renzo Rosso created Dieselito, a line of children's wear.

In late 1992, Renzo Rosso purchased a farm close to Diesel headquarters in Molvena, in the Italian region of Veneto, where he began producing wine and olive oil under the name Diesel Farm.

At the time of the purchase, the farm and its land were at risk of getting divided into separate lots for multiple buyers, but Renzo Rosso was able to prevent this by taking charge of the whole estate.

In 2001 Renzo Rosso began manufacturing and selling wine and olive oil.

In 1994, Renzo Rosso reopened the Pelican Hotel on Miami's South Beach strip.

The hotel, which was a historical Art Deco building constructed in 1939, had been restored under the direction of his Creative Team after Renzo Rosso had fallen in love with the building in 1991 and purchased it one month later.

In 2013, Renzo Rosso became a partner of Andre Balazs and of Eric Schmidt in the Chiltern Firehouse hotel in London.

In 2008, Renzo Rosso launched OTB Foundation, a not-for-profit organization to contribute to the sustainable development of less advantaged areas.

Later that year, Renzo Rosso was named a Millennium Promise Millennium Development Goals Global Leader at the United Nations in conjunction with the Millennium Development Goals Summit, alongside Senegalese musician and UNICEF ambassador Youssou Ndour, Microsoft-founder Bill Gates, musician and activist Bob Geldof, Queen Rania of Jordan, Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, and philanthropist Ted Turner, among others.

In February 2012, Renzo Rosso was invited by the Permanent Mission of Italy to the United Nations to host a press conference at The United Nations together with Jeffrey Sachs, Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University and Special Advisor to The United Nations' Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, about the progress of Millennium Promise and OTB Foundation.

On July 26,2012, Renzo Rosso created the Brave Circle Fund to help people hit by the 2012 earthquakes in Emilia-Romagna, Italy.

In June 2008, Renzo Rosso donated 2,000,000 HKD to the Special Relief Fund for Children Affected by the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, established by UNICEF to help children affected by the tremor in southwest China on 12 May.

Since 2010 Renzo Rosso has personally invested in projects focused on his home region of Veneto, North-East Italy.

Renzo Rosso received Grand Prix awards in 1992 2001,2007,2009, and 2010 and Advertiser of the Year in 1998.

In 2004 Renzo Rosso received the International Leading Entrepreneur Award in Monte Carlo.

In 2005, Renzo Rosso was named "Man of the Year" by the German edition of GQ.

Renzo Rosso received honorary degrees from University of Verona, Italy, in 2005; and from the CUOA Foundation of Altavilla Vicentina, Italy, in 2000, which cited Diesel as "one of the entrepreneurial phenomena of the 1990s".

In 2010, Renzo Rosso was named Millennium Promise Millennium Development Goals Global Leader in conjunction with the Millennium Development Goals Summit, at the United Nations in New York City.

In October 2011, Renzo Rosso was knighted Cavaliere del Lavoro by the President of the Republic of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano.

In 2015, Renzo Rosso received an honorary research doctorate in business economics from the University of Rome Tor Vergata.

Renzo Rosso has been recognised for his efforts "as an entrepreneur who changed the way people intuit, imagine, think, plan and spread style and the way of dressing around the world, giving value to the territory he works in".

Renzo Rosso got married for the third time, to Arianna Alessi, in great secrecy in Miami in March 2022, revealing it only in 2023.

Renzo Rosso has seven children : he became the father of his youngest child, a girl, at the age of 60.

Renzo Rosso is an avid art collector and enthusiast, and frequently travels to exhibitions and art fairs all around the world.

Besides owning works of Andy Warhol and contemporary Italian artists Francesco Vezzoli, Basquiat, Schnabel, and Fontana, Renzo Rosso has continuously pushed Diesel to support younger, talented artists, by initiating and sponsoring a wide range of projects across the arts, including Diesel New Art and Diesel Wall.