Nicola Calicchio Named Chief Strategy Officer of SoftBank Group International

SBGI Continues to Strengthen Leadership Team with Recent Appointments

MIAMI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SoftBank Group International (“SBGI”) today announced that Nicola Calicchio has been appointed Chief Strategy Officer of SBGI, effective July 1, 2021. Mr. Calicchio is based in São Paulo, Brazil and will report to Marcelo Claure, CEO of SoftBank Group International and COO of SoftBank Group. In this role, Mr. Calicchio will be responsible for sourcing and structuring strategic investments in leading Latin American companies.

“Nicola is the ideal fit for the newly-created role of Chief Strategy Officer,” said Mr. Claure. “He brings to SoftBank a unique perspective of value creation from his time at McKinsey & Company, where he established a proven track record of successfully executing large mergers and acquisitions that reshaped industries, as well as massive turnarounds that generated billions of dollars of value. Nicola’s deep experience providing counsel to many business leaders and CEOs of some of the largest LatAm companies fits perfectly with our efforts to expand our growing presence in the region. We are thrilled to have him join us and I look forward to working closely with him as we continue to execute SoftBank’s mission to invest in companies that are changing the way we work, play and live.”

Mr. Calicchio commented, “I am proud and humbled for the opportunity to join SoftBank’s remarkable team and execute on all of the exciting initiatives in the pipeline. Investing in leading technology- and AI-enabled companies aligns with my vision for the future, and I’m energized by the enormous opportunity to help transform the lives of hundreds of millions of people in our continent and create value for SoftBank and across our global portfolio of companies.”

The appointment of Mr. Calicchio further strengthens SBGI’s leadership team. In March 2021, Alex Szapiro, former Country Manager for Amazon Brazil, was appointed Operating Partner and Head of Brazil for SoftBank’s Latin America Fund, and in May 2021, Claudia Woods, former CEO of Uber in Brazil, was appointed CEO of WeWork in Latin America.

About Nicola Calicchio

Mr. Calicchio joins SoftBank after a tenured career at McKinsey & Company, where over a period of more than 28 years he helped the company grow into the $10+ billion corporation it is today by serving over 100 clients from more than 20 countries in all continents in a variety of sectors. Most recently, he became the first Latin American to ever become Co-Chair of a Global McKinsey committee by serving as Co-Chairman of the Global Client Council. In this role, Mr. Calicchio oversaw 50 experienced Senior Partners in their mentorship of other partners leading client service teams and CEO counseling. Prior to this, he became the first Latin American to lead McKinsey’s LatAm Region as Managing Partner and a Global OpCo Member, where over a period of seven years he helped grow top-line revenue by over 300%, increased location sites from six to 10, and grew the number of colleagues in the region from 500 to 2,000. Previously, Mr. Calicchio served as Senior Partner, where he created and led McKinsey’s LatAm Consumer Practice into its largest practice in the region, and before that, served as mid-tenured Partner and Associate.

Mr. Calicchio currently serves in an advisory capacity for a number of organizations, including as a member of the UNICEF´s advisory Board in Brazil; a member of the Advisory Board of Brazilian Student Association (BRASA), which oversees the more than 5,000 undergraduate Brazilian students living abroad; a member of the Advisory Board of Peninsula Participações; and a Board Member of MASP, Latin America’s largest museum. Previously, he helped found and served as Chairman of Generation in LatAm, a non-profit organization created by McKinsey to fight youth unemployment. Mr. Calicchio was also the recipient of the Lowell Bryan award, given to the McKinsey partner who made the most distinctive contribution to the development of women professionals at McKinsey.

Mr. Calicchio has been a speaker at over 100 conferences around the world and author of dozens of reports, such as the McKinsey Digital Report. He received his M.B.A. from the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management and a B.S. with distinction in Civil Engineering from the Federal University of Minas Gerais.

About SoftBank Group

The SoftBank Group invests in breakthrough technology to improve the quality of life for people around the world. The SoftBank Group is comprised of SoftBank Group Corp. (TOKYO: 9984), an investment holding company that includes stakes in telecommunications, internet services, AI, smart robotics, IoT and clean energy technology providers; the SoftBank Vision Funds, which are investing more than US$100 billion to help extraordinary entrepreneurs transform industries and shape new ones; the $US5 billion SoftBank Latin America Fund, the largest venture fund in that region, and the SB Opportunity Fund, a US$100 million fund dedicated to investing in enterprises founded by entrepreneurs of color in the U.S. To learn more, please visit https://global.softbank.