Roberto Pinza

Roberto Pinza was born in Forlì on 19 May 1941. He graduated in law (Laurea in Giurisprudenza) from the University of Bologna in 1964, qualified as a *procuratore legale* in 1966, and has practised as a civil lawyer for close to six decades, founding the Forlì-based Studio Legale Pinza. Early in his career he was an assistant to the chair of Private Law at the University of Bologna (1964–1973). He is registered with the Forlì-Cesena Bar and the Corte di Cassazione, with a practice spanning civil, commercial and corporate, labour, bankruptcy, contract/M&A and family law.

Pinza built a long public and institutional career in parallel with his legal work. He was President of the Chamber of Commerce of Forlì, Cesena and Rimini (1977–1992) and President of Unioncamere Emilia-Romagna (1988–1992). Entering national politics with Democrazia Cristiana (later PPI and La Margherita), he served in the Italian Parliament from 1992 to 2006 — as a Deputy (1992–2006) and briefly as Senator (2006). In government he was Undersecretary at the Treasury (1996–1999) with responsibility for the key areas of credit, finance and privatisations — chairing the two strategic committees for the Euro and for the development of Italy's financial markets — and later Vice-Minister of the Economy (2006–2008) in the Prodi II government. He is often credited with authorship of the 1990s legislation that reshaped Italy's banking foundations.

Alongside politics, Pinza has been closely tied to Romagna's healthcare and research institutions: he was President of the Istituto Oncologico Romagnolo (IOR) in Forlì (1986–2002) and founder and President of the Istituto Scientifico Romagnolo per lo Studio e la Cura dei Tumori (IRST) in Meldola (2009–2013). On 17 May 2013 he was elected President of the Fondazione Cassa dei Risparmi di Forlì, serving two mandates until 2021, when he handed the presidency to Maurizio Gardini. During those years he also sat on the national ACRI council (association of bank-origin foundations) and was Vice-President of the executive committee of the Emilia-Romagna association of such foundations.

As of his September 2024 CV, Pinza's active roles are as a practising civil lawyer, a lifetime member of the Assembly of the Fondazione Cassa dei Risparmi di Forlì, a member of AREL (Agenzia di Ricerche e Legislazione, since 1993) and a member of the Fondazione Roberto Ruffilli. He served on the boards of two significant Italian investment vehicles — F2i SGR SpA (Italy's largest infrastructure fund manager) and Sinloc SpA (Sistema Iniziative Locali, a territorial-development investment company) — from 2019 to 2022, and was a member of the support committee of Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) from 2015 to 2018.

• His "investing" is institutional, not angel: as foundation president he directed grant-making and asset management aimed at the Forlì / Romagna territory, framing the foundation as "a resource for the territory" and speaking of a tangible "effetto Forlì" (Forlì effect) of local progress.
• Strong focus on healthcare and cancer research (IOR, IRST/Meldola), education and culture, and local economic development — the traditional pillars of a bank-origin foundation.
• Through his F2i and SINLOC board seats (2019–2022), his exposure to "investment" was in infrastructure and local/territorial development projects rather than early-stage technology companies.
• Deep expertise in credit, finance and privatisations dating from his Treasury undersecretary years, which informed his roles across foundations and public-finance bodies.
• No verifiable record of seed-stage or startup angel investing exists; founders should treat the "Angel Investor / Seed Round" label attached to his contact record as an aggregator misclassification.