Paolo Catalfamo is Founder and Chairman of the merchant banking group Investar, based in Italy and the US and Professor at the Villanova School of Business in Philadelphia.
He serves as a Director of World Trade Capital Partners, a hedge fund in Guernsey and as an Advisor to Equinox Partners, a private equity fund in Luxembourg.

He is also Regional Vice President, Italy North and Board Member of the National Italian American Foundation in Washington DC (the association which represents the 23 million Italian-Americans) and Chairman of NIAF Italia.

Paolo is Advisor to the Government of Mauritius and to the President of Madagascar. Recently he has been appointed Honorary Consul General of Mauritius to Italy. He sits in the Advisory Board of the Villanova School of Business and the Bocconi University in Milano. He has been Managing Director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Italy and Chairman of the Italy- America Chamber of Commerce in Miami.

In 1994, he served as Founder, Deputy Chairman and CEO of Italy and Southern Europe of Franklin Templeton, the world third largest indipendent asset management group. In 2000, he founded Realty Investments and Invesclub, two asset management companies regulated by the Bank of Italy, which launch and manage mutual, private equity and hedge funds. The two companies had combined assets under management in excess of 1 billion euro and they were eventually sold to a Swiss bank.

In 1992 he was Founder and President of Cruise Finance in Miami, the leading arranger of financing to the cruise industry. In his academic role Paolo has been Professor of Economics of Financial Institutions at the University of Turin and at Bocconi University. He has published several pieces including “Marketing investment funds in Europe”(1997), “The evolution of finance in the Emerging Markets”(1997), “The management of Pension Funds in Italy”(1996),”The Italian Ship Financing”(1993), “The creation of an off-shore financial center in an evolving market: Mauritius financial platform for Africa and the Indian Ocean(1988).
Professor Catalfamo holds a Master Degree in Economic and Social Sciences (DES) from Bocconi University in Milano, with a major in International Finance.

He is based in Milano and Miami and has two sons, Tancredi,14 and Leonardo,4.