Piero Schlesinger Knight Grand Cross OMRI (19 May 1930 – 14 March 2020) was an Italian jurist, banker, lawyer and academic who served as president of the Banca Popolare di Milano from 1971 to 1993.
[1] In 1956, he began his academic career at the University of Urbino and, two years later, personally chosen by its dean and founder Father Agostino Gemelli, moved to the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan, where he held the chair of private law for over three decades.
[1] Manuale di diritto privato, the academic textbook of private law he co-authored with Andrea Torrente [it], is considered one of the most studied and influential of its kind in Italy.
Il Sole 24 Ore wrote that during his presidency, the longest-serving in BMP's history, Schlesinger "made the institution [...] a key benchmark of Lombardy's economy".
[2] In September 1982, he was appointed by Giovanni Bazoli, then head of the Nuovo Banco Ambrosiano, as president of La Centrale Finanziaria Generale [it], formerly owned by infamous banker Roberto Calvi.