Cinquanta grew up in Milan, Italy, where he practiced ice hockey, athletics and speed skating.

At the time of his election to the ISU Presidency, at the age of 56, he retired from his position as a manager of an international chemical company.

When Cinquanta was first elected to the ISU Presidency, he was initially regarded as a progressive who introduced prize money at ISU events after negotiating several commercial contracts, including an important television contract with ABC Sports.

[1] In spite of his professed lack of knowledge about the sport, he proposed a new scoring system for figure skating[2] whose major feature is secrecy, which would prevent anyone from knowing how an individual judge had marked the competition.

The implementation of secret judging at the 2003 World Figure Skating Championships in Washington, D.C., was controversial enough to result in a fan protest at that event,[3] with Cinquanta personally being jeered by the audience whenever he was introduced.