Chiara Paolinelli has been interested in international trade and commerce since her teenage years – at the time – she took a course in international economics and found her curiosity on the subject remained long after class ended.
“My interest over the complexity of the inter-dependence created between States from the mere exchange of capital, goods, and services across borders, grew over the years; it went from being a mere academic interest to a passion,” she says.
Now, as an industry leading international business strategist, Paolinelli supports, plans and guides commercial business opportunities between Italy and the United States. Working with the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles, she helps small and mid-sized Italian businesses find either commercial partners in the West Coast or aids in the expansion of the businesses and their clientele base in the same territory and supports their interests in increasing potential revenue streams. Every day she helps others achieve their dreams while simultaneously living her own.
Paolinelli often has to collaborate with many other organizations on large scale projects that help raise awareness of Italian business efforts abroad. When she helped with works aimed at creating a timeless ceremony last year for the great Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti when he posthumously received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, she, with and for the Italian Chamber of Commerce, worked with the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, The Grammy Museum, Consulate General of Italy in Los Angeles, Variety, and the Hollywood Walk of Fame, to name only a few of the many prominent organizations involved.
She also has been a part of the team that organizes the annual Italian Excellence Gala and Awards since 2019, recognizing leading Italian and Italian-American personalities, their distinction and their contribution to the Italian community in the US and globally.
Her respect within the industry has allowed her to be a part of the team that selects award winners, and past Gala honorees include, Eric Garcetti, Mayor of the City of Los Angeles, Alessandro Del Piero, former Juventus F.C. captain and Italian national team legend, widely regarded as one of the greatest soccer players of all times, the NBA’s Danilo Gallinari, Grey’s Anatomy’s Stefania Spampinato, Bianca Balti – supermodel, entrepreneur and Dolce & Gabbana’s muse, to name a few.
One of the projects Chiara worked on for a few years for the IACCW and in partnership with them, was the True Italian Taste Campaign, which ran from 2019 to 2022. The True Italian Taste initiative was financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and implemented by Assocamerestero in collaboration with the Italian Chambers of Commerce Abroad in the following countries: United States, Canada, Mexico, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Holland, Poland, United Kingdom, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, India, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Australia and Brazil.
The project was promoted within the framework of a national campaign called “The Extraordinary Italian Taste” whose main goal is to raise awareness about the authentic and certified agri-food Italian products.
“This is a very interesting project because it promotes cross cultural and economic pollination opportunities between Italy and the West Coast of the US; the project, through crafted events, created the opportunity – specifically for US specialty food and beverage trade members – to find new Italian specialty food and beverage products,” says Paolinelli.
When the Executive Director of the Chamber of Commerce approached Paolinelli about being a part of the team to organize such widespread and important activities in the West Coast of the US – to support the campaign – she was thrilled. It was an important and delicate project for the organization; putting everything together required extensive American and Italian economic knowledge, as well as strategic know-how of cultural conduct and nuances between the Italian and the U.S. economic agents in business practices and proceedings, and Paolinelli’s experience in these areas is second to none.
Paolinelli was responsible for organizing many pivotal sector specific events, specifically in the food and beverage industries, that would aid in incrementing various Italian product availability on shelves for US customers, and diversifying product suggestions to promote a thriving economy. These events included masterclasses, B2B meetings webinars, and more, but evolved over the years to promote engagement.
In 2021 she helped organize live webinars that ran simultaneously in Italy and in the West Coast of the US with live audience members, and in 2022 a video mapping immersive dinner experience for members of the specialty food and beverage trade industry in LA. These diverse activities were crafted specifically for the audience members, which required a lot of specialized knowledge of the local specialty food and beverage industry operators. This industry in the West Coast of the United States is hard to impress; yet they had positive feedback about the events Paolinelli helped organize.
“It is lovely to know that local buyers enjoyed the activities that were crafted and learned about the history of diverse artisanal specialty food and beverage products from Italy; it is also lovely to know that some new Italian products were introduced into the US market – of course” Paolinelli concluded.