How Giovanni built the fortune
Giovanni Ferrero belongs to the third generation of the family that controls the Ferrero Group. The company was founded in 1946 by his grandfather, Pietro Ferrero, a pastry maker in Alba, in the Piedmont region of northern Italy. Facing a shortage of cocoa after the Second World War, Pietro sold a sweet spread made largely from hazelnuts. His son Michele, Giovanni's father, refined the idea into Nutella, launched in 1964, and later created Kinder chocolate, Tic Tac and Ferrero Rocher. Under Michele the company expanded across Europe and then worldwide, while remaining fully private.
Giovanni and his elder brother Pietro became joint chief executives in 1997. After Pietro died suddenly in 2011, Giovanni led the group alone. He changed the company's long held preference for growth through its own brands and began an active programme of acquisitions, buying businesses in the United Kingdom, the United States and elsewhere. The largest was the 2018 purchase of Nestlé's American confectionery business, which brought brands such as Butterfinger and Crunch.
In 2017 he moved to the role of executive chairman, handing the chief executive post to Lapo Civiletti, the first person outside the family to run the group. Giovanni remains the controlling shareholder and sets its overall direction. Sales have grown steadily, helped by acquisitions and by the continuing popularity of Nutella and the Kinder range.
Companies and holdings
The Ferrero Group is held through family companies based in Luxembourg. Alongside its core brands, it has acquired a wide range of businesses, including:
- Thorntons, the British chocolate maker, in 2015.
- Fannie May and Ferrara Candy in the United States, around 2017.
- Nestlé's US confectionery brands in 2018.
- The cookie and snack brands of Kellogg, such as Keebler and Famous Amos, in 2019.
- Wells Enterprises, maker of Blue Bunny ice cream, in 2023.
- WK Kellogg Co, the North American breakfast cereal company, in a deal agreed in 2025.
The family also holds investments outside the main confectionery group through separate vehicles, giving it exposure to ice cream, cereals and biscuits in addition to chocolate. Ferrero buys a large share of the world's hazelnut harvest, particularly from Turkey, and has built its own farming and sourcing operations to secure supply.
Early life and career
Giovanni Ferrero was born in Alba in 1964. He spent much of his youth in Brussels, where the family had moved, and studied marketing in the United States. He joined the family company in the 1980s, working in commercial roles and in the group's operations in different markets before taking on senior management responsibility alongside his brother.
The two brothers ran the company together for fourteen years, with Pietro concentrating on production and operations and Giovanni on marketing and commercial strategy. Pietro's death in South Africa in 2011, followed by the death of their father Michele in 2015, left Giovanni as the clear head of the family. Outside business, he has published several novels in Italian, and he continues to live in Belgium, where the group has significant operations and an important management office.
His years in Brussels shaped the way the company is run today. Ferrero keeps important management functions in Luxembourg and Belgium, while production is spread across factories in Italy, Germany, Poland, the United States, Canada and many other countries. Giovanni has spoken in interviews about the importance of family ownership for long term planning, arguing that the absence of quarterly market pressure allows the group to invest patiently in brands and plants.
Philanthropy and public life
The family's main charitable body is the Fondazione Ferrero in Alba, set up by Michele Ferrero in 1983. It runs social, cultural and health programmes for retired employees of the company and for the local community, and organizes art exhibitions. The group also runs the Kinder Joy of Moving programme, which promotes physical activity for children, and the Michele Ferrero entrepreneurial projects in Africa and Asia that create local jobs.
Giovanni Ferrero is not a frequent public speaker, and the company has traditionally been discreet about its finances and plans. He gives occasional interviews in Italian media and appears at major company events. Like many large food makers, Ferrero faces scrutiny over palm oil, cocoa and hazelnut supply chains, including child labour risks in some producing regions, and it publishes sustainability reports describing its sourcing and audits.