Paolo Pininfarina is an Italian engineer, designer and businessman, known as the manager of the world famous Pininfarina design company.
He studied mechanical engineering at Politecnico di Torino before joining his father Sergio Pininfarina's firm (1982), as trainee stationed abroad with Cadillac and Honda (1983), and then as quality manager of the Cadillac Allanté project (1984-86) and program manager of the Engineering GM 200 at General Motors (1987-89). Paolo Pininfarina became the first manager of the new Pininfarina Extra S.r.l. (1987) which does design for non-automotive industries (furniture, appliances, maritime), while being in the upper management of the automobile firm as well (board member 1988, deputy chairman 2006) where he now is chairman (2008). Being a well known designer, he has been member in the steering board of Turin's Istituto Europeo di Design (1996-2004) and is emeritus participating founder of the Associazione per il Disegno Industriale of Milan.