Dr Leonardo Manzari

Leonardo is a senior economist, with a strong experience in Clusters Development, support to MSMEs, Entrepreneurship, Internationalization, Technical Assistance and Capacity Building within Industrial Co-operation activities, Business Modelling and Business Planning, Vocational Training, FDI attraction in various sectors (i.e. Railways, Logistics, Blue Economy, Farm Mechanization, Weighing and Measurement, Municipal and Industrial Vehicles, etc.).

First as a consultant, then as manager in different industrial groups, now with his consulting firm and the Institute for International Relations, he has been assisting clusters, consortia, entrepreneurial associations, institutions dedicated to the promotion of territories and local development, through EU funded projects (EU PHARE-JOPP, PHARE Institution Building Programme, TACIS, ECIIP projects in Hungary, Czech Rep., Slovak Rep., Albania, South Africa, China), national, regional and local independent initiatives and partnerships (i.e. Black Sea Economic Co-operation Organization, Marmara Group Foundation, IUST Tehran, IBSU, ICBSS, RAILMED, Consorzio Tecnomar Liguria, DLTM, SEC Mediterranea).

Along this path, since 2014 he has been co-organizing SEAFUTURE (the largest and most international-oriented Italian business convention in the Blue Economy, at its 8^th edition in 2020), and is co-founder and shareholder of Italian Blue Growth srl (IBG) for the promotion of the Blue Economy in all its fields, through dedicated networking events (naval and maritime technologies, port infrastructures and intermodal logistics, technologies for prevention and management of hydrogeological emergencies, etc.).

WestMed National Hub for Italy since January 2019, he is assisting the National Coordinators, like regional and local institutions for the adoption of the sustainable and common Blue Growth agenda in the Mediterranean basin defined in the Framework for Action; gathering and supporting Italian stakeholders to increase networking and sinergies with stakeholders from WestMed countries, joining opportunities offered by EU funded programmes, participating to specific projects, leading new project ideas on themes with high-potential, planning and acting with a systemic view towards common goals, strategies and actions.