Alberto Bichi

Alberto Bichi is the current Executive Director of EPSI www.epsi.eu since 2008. Following a brief working experience at the European Commission's cabinet of Commissioner Vanni d' Archirafi, Mr. Bichi integrated the Foreign Trade Association (FTA) where he soon became member of the Board. In his professional period at FTA, he was requested to develop and improve the Federation of the European Sporting Goods Industry (FESI) www.fesi-sport.org , which he did while advancing in the hierarchy: in 1996 he became FESI Member Services Manager, and then in 2000 he became Secretary General until 2017. At the end of 2017, FESI counted 10 staff personnel; 2 300 direct and indirect members and an annual turnover of nearly 1 million Euro. Moreover, between June 2012 and December 2017, Mr. Bichi became Director of Government Affairs for HDS-L representing The German Footwear & Leather Industry Association http://www.hds-schuh.de/ and equally represented in Brussels the interests of the Danish Footwear Industry Association from April 2014 to September 2017. http://skobranchen.dk/ Since the beginning of the year 2018, as full time EPSI Executive Director, Alberto Bichi obtained concrete / tangible results for the European Platform for Sport Innovation such as: - duplicated its members, - involvement in an increasing number of European projects - secured tangible advocacy results such as o a formal partnership with the European Commission DG EAC for the European Week of Sport o a leading role as supporter of the European cross regional partnership called ClusSport. As result, EPSI is presently leading the growth of the Sport Sector in Europe, strengthening the network and the dialogue between clusters, universities, clubs, research centers, associations, growing the dedicated funds opportunities for the broad sport value chain, striving for a more innovative sport environment and improving business developments in this domain.