An entrepreneur to his core, Monegasque national Gildo Pastor started his first company when he was 18. Three years later, he managed construction of the largest office building in Monaco, which has been home to Venturi’s headquarters since 2000. Through his work as a business angel, he has invested in some twenty innovative companies located all over the world.
Gildo Pastor is a visionary with a keen interest in technology. In the late 1990s, he had faith in electric vehicles, and there weren’t many people who shared that faith back then… In 2000, when he bought the French sports car manufacturer Venturi, and despite the fact that electric vehicle technology was in its infancy, he decided to shift the company in a surprising direction. From that point on, Venturi would specialise in high-performance electric vehicles.
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Sacha Lakic developed a strong appreciation of aesthetics, fluidity and movement at a very early stage. Fascinated by motorcycles and cars, he cut his teeth working on interior design for Peugeot. He then joined the Franco-Japanese manufacturer MBK-Yamaha, where he was behind all of the brand’s creations, concept bikes and production scooters.
In 1994, he founded his agency, Sacha Lakic Design, in Paris. A series of collaborations followed. Sacha continued to focus on motorbikes, working with French brand Voxan Motors for whom he designed the Black Magic, a roadster with a very sporty driving position. Sacha Lakic has collaborated with Roche-Bobois on furniture and interior decoration.
In 2001, fate threw him into the path of Gildo Pastor at the Paris Motor Show. Very quickly, the two men became friends and a working relationship developed: the Monegasque entrepreneur, who had just bought Venturi, asked the designer to sketch the outlines of the brand’s first electric car, the Fétish. More than twenty years later, the collaboration continues.
Sacha Lakic, a French designer who specialises in cars, furniture and product design, is the Style Director for Venturi and Voxan Motors, the Group’s motorcycle brand. Having worked continually with Gildo Pastor since 2000, Sacha Lakic has been behind the design of every one of the Group’s vehicles. He also designed Venturi’s premises in Monaco (the showroom, offices and shop).
Xavier Chevrin, who holds a PhD in American Affairs, has not followed a typical career path by any means. A former lecturer in French civilisation and sociology at the University of Beijing, he has also been Head of Education at the Cité de l’Espace space science centre in Toulouse (France), worked on cooperation issues for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and served as Head of Public Relations for the Ministry of the Armed Forces in Lima (Peru).
A true adventurer for the modern era, Xavier Chevrin has undertaken numerous expeditions. He completed the first intercontinental trip from Paris to China by electric scooter and rode horseback along a historic trail in the American South-West in nineteenth-century conditions.
After hearing about these extraordinary feats, Gildo Pastor invited him to conduct endurance tests for Venturi vehicles. In this role, Xavier Chevrin has covered the longest distances ever driven in an electric vehicle, travelling from Shanghai to Paris (Mission Shanghai to Paris: 14,900 kilometres) and crossing East Africa (Mission Africa: 5,800 kilometres) under unique conditions.
Gildo Pastor then asked him to lead Venturi North America, the company’s US branch based in Columbus, Ohio. Here, some of the development work on the vehicles with which the brand has broken speed records is carried out with invaluable collaboration from Ohio State University and its students.
Before joining Gildo Pastor to create Venturi Group’s space venture, Dr Antonio Delfino was Head of the Chemistry and Physics Department at Michelin, where the French group promoted him to the rank of Senior Fellow. Over the course of his career, Antonio has obtained more than 120 patents and written 18 scientific articles covering various fields such as the production and storage of hydrogen and oxygen, fuel cells, composite materials, polymer science and industrial processes. In 2019, this space and physics enthusiast joined forces with Gildo Pastor to found a company specialising in the space industry: Venturi Lab, based in Fribourg (Switzerland), of which he is also the Director. Antonio Delfino additionally serves on the Venturi Astrolab Advisory Board (Los Angeles, USA).
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At Venturi’s headquarters in Monaco, in a contemporary setting designed by Sacha Lakic, a team of fifteen dedicated people work to bring the company’s projects to life.
The R&D department is at the heart of the business: all vehicles are designed and assembled in the Group’s Monaco facilities. The other departments that contribute to the success of each project are: mechanics, marketing, finance, human resources, logistics and communication.
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