Francesco Grillo graduated with laude in Economics at LUISS University (ROME), before getting an MBA from Boston University as a Fulbright Scholar. He also holds a Ph.D. in Political Economy from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

He is Visiting Fellow at The European University Institute in Fiesole, Affiliate Professor at Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna of Pisa and teaches at the summer school of University of International Business Economics in Beijing. He has been visiting fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute and at St. Antony's College (University of Oxford). He is advisor on urban policies to Italy’s Minister of Infrastructure and he has been advisor to Italy’s Minister of Education, Universities and Research.

He started his career at McKinsey, the management consulting firm, where he worked in the financial institutions practice, before joining Vision and Value, the strategy consulting boutique. As Managing Director, he advises major institutions (including the European Commission and Italian Ministry of Economy) and multinationals. Francesco is also Director of the think tank Vision which convenes two yearly major conferences on the future of Europe (in Siena) and on global governance of climate change (in the Dolomite area). His professional and research interests are around how the Internet is changing industries and political systems.

He is also columnist for Il Messaggero, Corriere della Sera, Linkiesta, and The Guardian. He is often interviewed by international media like The Economist and he is a regular guest on La7, SkyTG24 and RaiNews24.

Together with Vision he lead a number of projects on the impact of the Internet on Society, social innovation, the future of universities and on smart cities. He is author of many scientific articles. His latest books (2019) are “Democracy and Growth in the 21st century: the diverging cases of China and Italy” edited by Springer Nature and “Lezioni Cinesi” edited by Solferino RCS.