MARCO DURANTE
Born in Turin in 1962, Marco Maria Durante is an Italian entrepreneur, founder and President of the multimedia press agency LaPresse. He currently lives between Milan, London and New York.
In his 30-year career, he has become a leading figure in the Italian publishing industry. Due to his discretion and authority, he was appointed by the Agnelli family to manage the most delicate relations with the media for the Lingotto and the Avvocato’s entourage (from Henry Kissinger to Prince Rainier of Monaco).
After graduating from the ISEF in Turin, achieving a final grade of 98/100, he became a swimming teacher. His life-long passion for sport led him to play as a midfielder in the Torino FC Youth Sector. Later he had the opportunity to coach, with Corrado Rosso, the Libertas SAFA, guiding the Torino Serie C swimming team to major successes.
Marco Maria Durante then decided to broaden his educational experience abroad: first in Toronto, then in New York to study Economics, then as an ISEF teacher in Lyon, where he obtained a degree in Sports from the Unité de Formation et de Recherche en Sciences et Techniques des Activités Physiques et Sportives of the Claude Bernard University Lyon 1, with top marks.
In 1992 he started working with Publifoto. In 1994 he founded LaPresse with his brother Massimo, paving the way for the development and diversification of activities. The agency became a leading media company on the information and communication scene in Italy, standing out for innovation and dynamism.
Drawing on his experience he founded LaPresse Nuoto Torino in 2005, taking on the role of President. He financed the team and led it to victory in competitions, also signing up French champion Laure Manadou.
LaPresse continued to grow: alongside photo reporting, video news was introduced (first news agency to do so in Italy), to communicate and document through increasingly contemporary media. The next step was internationalisation: in 2008 Marco Maria Durante acquired the distribution rights in Italy for the entire production of Associated Press and, two years later, LaPresse officially became a press agency.
In the meantime, Durante continued his studies and graduated in Law with honours and distinction from the Pegaso University of Naples with a thesis on Tax Law with publication rights. The University of Naples appointed him as lecturer in Business Communication Strategies at the Faculty of Business Economics.
In 2020 he obtained the Certificate in Corporate Finance at the New York University Stern School of Business and, in 2021, the Coursera Certificate in Financial Markets at Yale University.
In September 2021, Marco Maria Durante was awarded a Global Fellowship by LUISS University. The LUISS Global Fellowship is awarded to high-profile individuals who distinguish themselves in their careers either through innovation in their professional practices or through leadership roles at the international level. As a Global Fellow, he is part of a select group of individuals who act as envoys to promote the values of the LUISS educational model in their professional communities.
In the academic years, the President of LaPresse lectured in Media and Communication at Universitas Mercatorum – the University of the Sytem of the Italian Chambers of Commerce.
In May 2022, Learn Italy, Italian Communication, Promotion and Business Agency active around the world, presented an international award to Marco Maria Durante. The Board of Learn Italy, in consultation with its partners, carefully selected the recipients of the award, recognising their merits, skills and relevance in promoting Italian excellence in the world through their role and profile.
Today, LaPresse is the leading entrepreneurial multimedia press agency in Italy; it is the exclusive Italian partner of Associated Press; it is a television production company for thematic channels, news and information as well as entertainment programmes; it is a press office specialised in image enhancement; it is a management agency. It has 15 offices in Italy and 15 abroad.
As of 15 June 2022, Marco Maria Durante will take over as CEO of the group while maintaining his role as President of LaPresse.
The Board of Directors also appointed him President of LaPresse USA Inc. As a result, Durante assumed responsibility and control in the US from the East Coast to the West Coast, from LaPresse’s New York headquarters at 200 Liberty Street, to Washington, DC and on to Los Angeles.
LaPresse also embarked on a European expansion plan starting with Spain where, from January 2023, it will distribute AP, APTN and LaPresse photos, videos and texts in English and Spanish.
Marco Maria Durante is the protagonist of an entrepreneurial path that, in thirty years, has made him one of the leaders of the publishing scene in Italy.