Indeed, many thanks to the UK Ambassador to Italy, the Rt. Hon. Lord Edward Llewellyn, the British Embassy Rome, the British Council, the Department of Business and Trade and to the British Consulate Milan for this incredibly prestigious invite and for the continued support of our historic project. 

It was in this setting that Paul was especially delighted to participate in the Creative Economy Workshop, which was one of four focus areas given on the Friday morning. Paul expressed his views on the value of the conference in its final session:

"As someone who leads a £60m Anglo-Italian investment project to reconstruct the world's first opera house (the Teatro San Cassiano of 1637) in Venice, the opportunity afforded by this conference to meet with so many talented individuals and to share our experiences has been of tremendous value and for this we owe our hosts a huge debt.

The restoration of the Teatro San Cassiano to Venice will place cultural patrimony at the centre of a sustainable future for Venice and to deliver what I believe is the most important historic and cultural project in recent Italian history. Thank you."

Photo: Paul Atkin with: to the left, Serena Corti (Deputy Consul General and Deputy Head of DIT Italy), and to the right respectively, Ernesto Sicilia (Managing Director Trenitalia UK Ltd), Comm. Francesco Bongarrà (Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in London), Roberto Costa (President Elect of The Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry for the UK) and Steven Sprague (President of The British Chamber of Commerce for Italy).

The conference was appropriately entitled "Creating Opportunities" and ran from Thursday 28 – Friday 29 November 2024. After some well-chosen words of welcome by the UK Ambassador, Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni gave a speech by videolink. UK Deputy Prime Minister Rt. Hon. Angela Rayner then gave the keynote speech before being joined on stage by Italy's Deputy Prime Minister On. Antonio Tajani. 

The Pontignano Conference aims to bring together current and future leaders from the UK and Italy to address common challenges and develop networks and close relationships. Its scope is deliberately broad, spanning the worlds of politics, defence, business, media, culture, technology, education, economics and academia.

Special thanks go to Lizzie Lovat at the British Embassy in Rome, Serena Corti, Anthea Zanella and Kassim Ramji at the British Consulate, and Michael Jolley-Pathirana Dissanayakage at the UK's Department of Business and Trade.