Why Italy Replaced Leonardo’s CEO Despite a 780% Stock Surge
Italy’s Ministry of Economy and Finance has formally put forward Lorenzo Mariani to take over as the new CEO of Leonardo. On April 9, the ministry also suggested that Francesco Macrì step in as the new chairman. This ends several days of rumors that had been circulating before the shareholder assembly scheduled for May 7. It also means that Roberto Cingolani is on his way out. He will leave after a three-year stint where he managed to carry out a turnaround that largely redefined how people look at the country's primary defense group.
The ministry holds a direct ownership stake of about 30.2% in Leonardo. It is one of those positions that is small enough that you might call it a minority stake, but it is plenty large enough for the government to dictate terms to the rest of the board. The formal list of names is due to be filed by about April 13, which makes the May 7 meeting feel more like a procedural formality than a real debate.
Mariani is not just a political figure being dropped into the role. He has a substantive track record, having worked as the Chief Commercial Officer at Leonardo and as the head of Leonardo International. He also served as the group's Co-General Manager starting in 2023, right before he moved over to handle the Italian operations for the missile joint venture, MBDA. That company is probably one of the most closely watched parts of the defense world right now. Between 2023 and the end of 2025, MBDA actually doubled its production of missiles. Last year, its revenue reached €5.8 billion and it was sitting on a backlog worth over €44 billion.
Mariani is coming from the part of the European defense business that is doing much of the heavy lifting. If you are looking for a reason to stay optimistic about the company, his history with these sorts of operations is the best case for continuity that you are likely to find.
The results recorded for the 2025 fiscal year give you a sense of why it feels a bit jarring to replace Cingolani now. He delivered new orders worth €23.8 billion and revenue of €19.5 billion. The earnings before interest and taxes came in at €1.75 billion, while the free cash flow hit the €1 billion mark. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the value of Leonardo’s shares has climbed by something like 780%. The industrial plan he put out just last month set a target of €30 billion in annual revenue by 2030, framed around the idea of turning Leonardo into a software-driven security platform rather than a traditional hardware company.
The timing makes the whole thing even more of a surprise. During this same week of government appointments, Rome chose to keep Claudio Descalzi in place at Eni and Flavio Cattaneo at Enel. Cingolani was the one who was singled out. This was not a case of a government clearing the decks across the board; they specifically chose to make a change at Leonardo.
Cingolani was a physicist and a former minister who tried to push Leonardo toward a more conceptually ambitious identity. There was his "Michelangelo" project, which was a sort of security dome meant to integrate AI and sensors into one platform. That project reportedly did not sit well with the team around Prime Minister Meloni. Even though his vision seemed to align quite well with the 2030 roadmaps coming out of the European Commission, political compatibility ended up being more important than strategic alignment. Rome has essentially made the choice to favor a company that is easier to manage over one that is trying to be more ambitious.
Guy Wyser-Pratte, the well-known activist investor, has already called this a piece of political interference. Given how things have played out, it is hard to say he is wrong. On the same day the news broke, a group of institutional investors who hold minority stakes filed their own independent list for the board. It is a subtle message from the foreign funds—who own about 90% of the institutional stock—that they are not just going to stay quiet while the government rearranges the leadership.
Mariani will likely do a perfectly good job of keeping the earnings on a steady path. The broader environment is working in his favor, and his experience at MBDA fits quite naturally with the rush to rearm across Europe. But there is a real catch here. Cingolani was building a specific story for investors—the idea that Leonardo was becoming a high-margin digital platform. Mariani has not yet shown that he can sell that same kind of vision.
That distinction is important because it is what determines the multiple that the stock carries. You have to watch whether Mariani explicitly backs the AI parts of the 2030 plan or if the Michelangelo project gets quietly shelved. The basic fundamentals of the business are still among the strongest in Europe, but the governance has just become a weak point. For a market that was starting to treat Leonardo as a high-growth technology play, that is exactly where the risk is sitting.
not investment advice