Palermo began his career in 1995, in the Investment Banking Division at Morgan Stanley in London, where he was responsible for equity and bond placements, corporate mergers and acquisitions.

From 1998 until 2005, Palermo was a strategic consultant at McKinsey & Company, specialising in corporate restructuring, transformation and turnaround projects for major industrial and financial groups.

[2] In 2005, Palermo joined the Fincantieri Group as Business Development and Corporate Finance Director,[3] reporting to the CEO, before taking on the role of Chief Financial Officer (2006-2014) and then Deputy General Manager (2011-2014).

Since 2017, Palermo has been a member of the Italian-French committee for the alliance project between Fincantieri and the Naval Group, a European shipbuilder.

[16] In 2023, Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica ran articles citing Acea staff as saying Palermo had been abusive towards female hostesses working at the company.