Antonio Zappulla
CEO, Thomson Reuters Foundation
Antonio Zappulla is CEO of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the corporate foundation of Thomson Reuters and an independent charity registered in the UK and US.
Since his appointment in 2019, Antonio has re-aligned the Foundation’s strategic focus around three main areas of work; fostering inclusive economies, advancing media freedom and promoting human rights, with an overarching mission of helping to shape a prosperous world where no one is left behind.
Under his leadership, the Foundation has built on the combined power of its legal and media expertise to develop programmes and initiatives that drive change through its unique services. All of its activities are directly linked to ESG frameworks and U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), in particular, Goal 16 (Strong Institutions and Justice), Goal 8 (Inclusive Economic Growth), Goal 13 (Climate Action) and Goal 5 (Gender Equality).
An outspoken supporter of the business case for human rights, Antonio is the founder of Openly, the world’s first global platform dedicated to coverage of LGBT+ stories with distribution to 1 billion Reuters clients daily.
In 2018, Antonio ranked first in the OUTstanding list of third sector LGBT executives published by the Financial Times. In 2017, he was named a European Young Leader by Friends of Europe. In 2016, he was awarded the Talented Young Italians Award by Italian Chamber of Commerce.
Antonio is a One Young World Counsellor and a World Economic Forum agenda contributor. He sits on the Boards of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford; the Forum for Global Challenges at the Institute for Global Innovation at the University of Birmingham; the International News Safety Institute; and LGBT+ NGO Open for Business.
Prior to his present role, Antonio was Executive Producer at Bloomberg Television in charge of news, factual programming and documentaries for Europe, Middle East and Africa, developing a number of award-winning TV series distributed globally.
Antonio holds a Degree in Journalism, a Master’s Degree in Middle East Studies, and has continued his executive education at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.