Francesco (PhD 2003 Greifswald, MBA 2019 ESCP Europe) co-founded Renaissance Fusion in 2020 after a physics research career at ENEA Frascati, IPP Garching and Greifswald, UKAEA Culham, General Atomics in San Diego, the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Columbia University in New York.  His accolades include the 2003 Otto Hahn Medal for his PhD on Wendelstein 7-AS, and the 2011 DOE Early Career Award for the first stabilization of a “Locked Mode” -the main cause of tokamak disruptions. As one of few physicists with direct experience on stellarators, tokamaks and spherical tokamaks, he concluded that HTS stellarators with liquid metal walls are the most viable, efficient reactors, but they need to be simplified, shrunk and made economically attractive. With that in mind, he earned an executive MBA and co-founded Renaissance Fusion, where he is currently CTO. Until 2025, Francesco was also the inaugural CEO of Renaissance, which he grew to 100 people, over € 60M of funds raised, and 3 locations in 2 countries.