Executive Team

Alessandro Pansa was appointed Chairman of Sparkle in April 2024, role that he formerly held from 2019 to 2023.

Since 15 June 2023 he was member of board of director of TIM, and from 2022 to 2023 he was President of Telsy.

He graduated in law at the University of Naples "Federico II". 

He has more than forty years of experience in public and private security sector, where he has held roles with increasing levels of responsibility.

He joined the State Police in 1975 with the rank of Deputy Commissioner of Public Safety.

He began his career at the Cosenza Police Headquarters, where he dealt with organized crime and terrorism. In 1982 he was transferred to Rome to the narcotics team and then to the criminal police, and in 1985 was assigned to the Central Directorate of the Criminal Police, where he conducted important investigations into organized crime. He became Director of the Central Operations Service of the State Police in 1996.

Appointed Prefect in June 2000, he assumed the position of Central Director of Police "Specialties" in the directorate that coordinates the Road, Railway, Border and Postal and Communications Police. In July 2003 he became Head of the Central Directorate of Immigration and the Border Police of the Interior Ministry. 

In November 2005, he took up the post of Deputy Director General of Public Security (Deputy Chief of Police), as well as Central Director of the Criminal Police (Criminalpol). On 4 January 2007 he was appointed Prefect of Naples by the Council of Ministers. 

On 30 August 2010 he took up the post of Director of the Department for Internal and Territorial Affairs of the Ministry of the Interior.

On 31 May 2013 he was appointed Chief of Police - Director General of Public Security by the Council of Ministers.

On 29 April 2016 he was appointed Head of the DIS (Department of Information Security). 

A Knight of the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, he has taught at the Higher Police Institute, the Higher School of Administration of the Interior and at a number of universities. 

He is co-author of numerous texts on security matters.

Enrico Bagnasco was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Sparkle on 17 November 2022.

He has been Chief Technology Officer at Sparkle since September 2019. Prior to that, from July 2018 he was TIM CTO’s Product & Portfolio Manager and from September 2016 he led TIM Technology Innovation with focus on 5G, network virtualization and slicing, big data analytics and cognitive computing.

Before, he held different management responsibilities in Telecom Italia in the areas of OSS, Service Platforms and Network engineering, including IP metro, CDN, wireline broadband access, home devices, VoIP/IMS, contact center, video platforms and IoT services.

He joined CSELT (Telecom Italia’s R&D center) in 1988 and led research and standardization activities on network management and service platforms in ETSI, ITU and TeleManagement Forum.

He holds a degree in Computer Science from the University of Torino.

Riccardo is an international minded executive with 30 years of experience in the ICT services and infrastructures fields, dealing with growth and rationalization projects approached with strategic thinking and operational focus. He is a long lasting Board and Executive Committee Member in various Telco and ICT companies within historical Telecom Italia/TIM investments abroad. 

He has been appointed Chief Financial Officer of Sparkle in September 2022 and spent last 10 years holding various responsibility roles in Strategic Planning, Marketing, Innovation, Business/Corporate Development and Project Management.

Riccardo has been working in the Company since 2004, starting as Head of Planning & Control of Subsidiaries.

He joined Telecom Italia Group in 1992 as Senior Analyst in Strategy Department at corporate level. Then moved to International Operations from 1995 to 2004 where he held different roles and responsibilities within Planning & Control Dpt., acting as a controller and participating to several M&A projects worldwide in that period.

Before joining the Telecommunication Group he worked for Eli Lilly, a US pharmaceutical company, as a manufacturing plant engineer & planner and as treasury analyst. In 1988 he began his career in Elettronica S.p.A., a company in the Electronic Defense field, as Radar System Engineer.

He holds an MBA from the Bocconi University in Milan and a degree in Telecommunications Engineering from Sapienza University of Rome.
 

Daniele Mancuso has been appointed Chief Marketing & Product Management at Sparkle in February 2024, in charge of developing the Group’s holistic Products Portfolio, its market positioning (geographies, pricing, differentiating elements, marginality constraints) and its alignment against Sparkle’s vision & strategy. The responsibility includes the lifecycle management of Sparkle’s International Points of Presence and Submarine Cables.

In the previous years, he served as Chief Product Management, Chief Marketing Solutions & Business Development, EVP ICT Engineering and Director Innovation & Engineering.

Daniele brings three decades of broad commercial and technical experience in building and marketing telecom networks and associated products, both for wholesale and enterprise markets, spanning from Submarine Cables and related infrastructures to L1 Capacity and L3 IP Transit services, from Carrier Ethernet to SD-WAN, SASE & Multicloud, from International Wholesale Voice to Enterprise cloud-based Geo-Numbering, Unified Communications, and, most recent addition in Sparkle Portfolio, Global IoT connectivity services.

During his years of technological leadership, he triggered the transformation of Sparkle towards an API-centric Global Service Platform, introducing the pillars of a software-defined, virtualized, and programmable network, while ensuring the full commitment of the Company to contribute and follow open standards & certification programs, of which he’s a total believer & supporter.

More recently he initiated the exploration of new technological enablers—such as Distributed Ledger Technology—as source of new revenue streams, bringing Sparkle to join as founding member of the Integrated Trust Network and as sponsor of the MEF LSO Blockchain concept.

In May 2023, keeping his Group Responsibilities, Daniele has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of TI Sparkle Greece, the major Op.Co. in Sparkle Group in terms of technological assets and number of employees. In addition, since 2019, Daniele is Board Director Member of MEF, a global consortium of network, cloud, security, and technology providers accelerating enterprise digital transformation.

Daniele holds a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Catania.

Lorella Scalcione is Chief Information Officer at Sparkle and Member of the Board of Directors in several subsidiaries of the Sparkle Group.

In Sparkle since 2017, she significantly contributed to the company’s Transformation from a traditional Carrier to a Digital Telco adopting the Data Driven Company paradigm and starting the adoption of AI-based tools to support business and operations.

In the last 20 years she has held executive roles in the Media and Communications sectors working either as IT Director or Chief IT Architectures managing and driving IT transformation programs spanning all application domains. Within the Telecom Italia Group she participated in several M&A projects as IT referral (Noverca purchase in 2016, LA7 sale in 2013, LA7 CartaPiù sale in 2008, Seat Pagine Gialle sale 2003) and she was part of the foundation of two startups (LA7 CartaPiù in 2006 e Tin.it in 1996).

Lorella is a Telecommunication Engineer graduated at Sapienza University of Rome.

With Sparkle since 2019, Francesco Viggiani is responsible of Security ensuring the protection of personnel and infrastructure, business continuity, the prevention and mitigation of fraudulent activities in compliance with both national and international frameworks related to national security and strategic infrastructures.

He began his career at the age of 16, attending the Classical Lyceum at the Nunziatella Military School in Naples followed by a master's degree at the Academy of the Military Finance Police (Guardia di Finanza);  he became a senior officer, holding leadership role as Commander of territorial and investigative units in critical areas — including international assignments — as well as roles within the General Staff.

He holds a degree in Economic-Financial Security Sciences and a master's degree in international anti-terrorism. He is also the author of publications on the digitalization processes of the public administration focusing on anti-corruption measures and information security.

He has been awarded the title of Knight of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, conferred by the President of the Republic.

Stefano Gigli was appointed Chief Technology Officer of Sparkle Group in February 2024.

From February 2023 to January 2024 he held the role of head of Data Centers and Cloud & IoT engineering at TIM Enterprise.

In the previous five years he held the role of Director of the Central Italy area of the Network Operations Office, where he was responsible for the development and management of TIM's fixed and mobile network and customer services.

From 2010 to 2017 he held the position of head of IT infrastructures and of the development and management of Telecom Italia's IT systems and applications.

From 2003 to 2010 he was responsible of the Project Office, Marketing and ICT services of the Top Clients Department of Telecom Italia.

He began his career in 1989 in commercial management for large customers, dealing with the sale of products, voice and data connectivity.

Stefano obtained a Master's degree in Economics and Business from the University of Perugia.