Matteo Marinelli
Matteo Marinelli comes to the real estate industry following a 20 years financial investments’ career across Asia, Europe and Africa. He is a financial inclusion professional specialized in emerging markets with a natural passion for architecture, interior design and contemporary art. He has a global network of contacts ranging from Bangkok to London, from Singapore to Paris, from Cape Town to Marrakech.
He began his career working with Grameen Bank, in Bangladesh and after short term consulting assignments in Tanzania, Afghanistan, Serbia and Thailand, he did relocate to Geneva, Switzerland, working for Blue Orchard Finance, an impact investing asset management firm specialized in lending to financial institutions in emerging markets. It is here in Switzerland that he also started to be active in the real estate sector as an investment asset class through the creation of private equity club deals on international markets. Matteo has successfully closed real estate club deals in the following markets: Miami, Berlin, Madrid, Milan and New York. His financial and investment skills made him able to acquire clients globally and manage real estate investments on their behalf.
In 2013 Matteo joined a wholly owned subsidiary of Temasek Holdings, one of the two Singaporean Sovereign Wealth Funds, Fullerton Financial Holdings, first as a Project Manager based out of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, responsible for the start-up of a greenfield MSME banking investment which led to the creation of Cambodia Post Bank and then since 2013 as Fullerton’s Country Representative based out of Yangon, Myanmar, responsible for the set-up and launch of Fullerton Myanmar. It is in Myanmar, where he spent almost 9 years of his life in total, that he got interested and became familiar with the challenges faced by agri-businesses and small-scale farmers who lacked access to capital and markets and that’s what brought him to Maha Agriculture Microfinance where he became CEO back in 2017.
Born and educated in Italy with a Master degree in Economics, he has had academic exchange programs at the University of Niigata in Japan, at the New York University, at the London School of Economics and at the University of California in Berkeley. He has an executive management diploma from INSEAD and speaks fluent English, Spanish and Italian and is a beginner in Thai.
Matteo is a triathlete having completed two 70.3 IronMan in Dubai and Thailand and is preparing for his second marathon in Berlin in September 2023. Together with his wife Ana Cecilia they co-founded KUKA-philosophy, a lifestyle brand that owns two beautiful properties that they have bought and renovated in Ibiza, Spain and Pantelleria, Italy, on top of other fashion and perfumery projects developed over the years from Mexico to Myanmar.
Matteo is a proud husband to his lifelong partner and wife Ana Cecilia and a proud father of their son Carlo Andres. With his family they live between Ibiza, Bangkok and Italy.