Benedetto Vigna

Benedetto Vigna
Vigna in 2025
Born	(1969-04-10) 10 April 1969 (age 56) Potenza, Italy
Occupation	Business executive Physicist
Title	CEO, Ferrari
Board member of	Ferrari

Benedetto Vigna (born 10 April 1969) is an Italian physicist and businessman. He is currently the chief executive officer (amministratore delegato in Italian) of Ferrari.

Career

Born in Potenza, Basilicata, he grew up in the neighboring municipality of Pietrapertosa. ^[1]

Graduating with honors as a physicist from the University of Pisa in 1993, he did his first experiences at the CERN in Geneva, the ESFR in Grenoble, and the Max Planck Institute in Munich. In 1995 he started working for STMicroelectronics starting the company's commitment to microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). ^[2] He worked for a year at The Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center (BSAC) at the University of California, Berkeley, before returning to ST and appointed director of the MEMS Business Unit. ^[3]

Vigna's team developed the three-axis accelerometer, a three-dimensional motion sensor which was initially applied to the airbags of automobiles. ^[4] After reducing its size and cost, the sensor was used in the Nintendo Wii console's wireless controller and iPhone's screen rotation feature. ^{[4] [5]} For this invention, Vigna was included in the shortlist of twelve candidates for the "European Inventor 2010" award promoted by European Patent Organization. ^[4] In his career he has registered more than two hundred patents. ^[6] In 2015, he received the IEEE Frederik Philips Award "for leadership in conceiving, developing, and commercializing micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS)". ^[7]

On 9 June 2021, he was announced as the new chief executive officer of Ferrari. ^[8]

References

1. "Il lucano Benedetto Vigna dal 1° settembre amministratore delegato Ferrari. "Orgoglio e senso di responsabilità"" (in Italian). 8 August 2021. Retrieved 19 December 2021.
2. "Biografia di Benedetto Vigna" (PDF). STMicroelectronics (in Italian). Retrieved 13 November 2021.
3. "Analog Profile: Benedetto Vigna". eetimes.com. 19 August 2008. Retrieved 7 October 2025.
4. de Paola, Giovanni (12 March 2010). "Premio per l'inventore europeo. In gara anche un italiano". Corriere della Sera (in Italian). Retrieved 13 November 2021.
5. "There's more to MEMS than meets the iPhone". eetimes.com. 9 July 2007. Retrieved 7 October 2025.
6. "Benedetto Vigna Result list". Espacenet . Retrieved 13 November 2021.
7. ""IEEE Frederik Philips Award" recipients" (PDF). corporate-awards.ieee.org. Retrieved 7 October 2025.
8. "Ferrari appoints Benedetto Vigna as chief executive officer". Ferrari . 9 June 2021. Retrieved 13 November 2021.