The ceramic industry mourns death of Filippo Marazzi

The Chairman of MarazziGroup Filippo Marazzi died yesterday, 28 November. One of the ceramic industry's best known figures, he succeeded in transforming the company founded by his grandfather in Sassuolo in 1935 into the world's leading tile multinational with production facilities in Italy, the United States, Russia, France and Spain. The group now has more than 6,000 employees and an annual production of over 100 million square metres in five countries.

Born in Sassuolo in 1949, Filippo Marazzi took control of the family company in 1978 at the age of just 29 following the sudden death of his father Pietro in a road accident.

In the early 1980s he launched the Group's internationalisation process with the building of the manufacturing facilities of Marazzi Iberia in Spain and American Marazzi Tile in the United States.

The news of Filippo Marazzi's death has spread rapidly through the Sassuolo ceramic district and the rest of the ceramic world and has been greeted with sadness and sympathy by the industry's business leaders. "The sudden death of Filippo Marazzi has been deeply felt by the entire Italian ceramic industry, where his company represents a source of inspiration in terms of its history and the international dimensions it has reached under his passionate leadership," said Confindustria Ceramica's Chairman Franco Manfredini.