Agostino Rocca

His family relocated to Rome early in his childhood, and he completed secondary school studies at the Collegio Militare di Roma.

He was made part of the Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI), the centerpiece of the Mussolini regime's corporate state, in 1933, and joined the body's military industries committee, becoming a member of the board of directors of a number of venerable names in Italian industry and engineering, notably Dalmine and Ansaldo, and overseeing their conversion into defense contractors ahead of hostilities leading to World War II.

[2] He was appointed to the powerful post of director of Finsider, the IRI's financial arm, in 1938, but began distancing himself from Mussolini in 1941, and was dismissed.

Establishing subsidiaries in Brazil (1947), Chile (1951), and Mexico (1954), the company purchased a majority stake in Dalmine (Rocca's erstwhile employer), in 1954, and opened its first seamless steel tube plant in Campana, the same year.

The joint venture with Techint's Propulsora Siderurgica was first announced in 1967, though, ultimately, a similar arrangement was concluded instead with a leading competitor, Acindar.