Top 50 Emerging Leaders 2022 (in alphabetical order by CVC unit): Rosario Cannata, executive investment manager, EDP Ventures
Rosario Cannata is an executive investment manager and head of corporate venture capital (CVC) at EDP Ventures Brasil, an investment vehicle for Portugal-headquartered energy utility Energias de Portugal (EDP).
EDP Ventures has teams and funds in Lisbon, Madrid and São Paulo. Cannata is responsible for the vehicle in São Paulo, and he is tasked with identifying investment opportunities in Latin America.
He said: “I have been involved with EDP Ventures for the past four years, participating in the entire approval process, defining the investment strategy and the setup of the local investment vehicle.
“This is my first experience in a formal CVC as I always worked in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) at EDP and other companies in Brazil and the US.”
In addition to M&A, Cannata has also worked in project finance, participating in transactions between $500m and $1bn. He said CVC allowed him to make a real impact on people and businesses, adding: “I also have the opportunity to help the startups with capital raising, validation of the technology, product development and new revenues with EDP.”
A native Italian born in Sicily, Cannata moved to Milan to study economics at Bocconi University, before moving to Venezuela, the Dominican Republic and eventually took an analyst role at investment bank Chicago Investment Group in New York.
Cannata moved to Brazil in 2010 to work for oil major Schahin Petróleo e Gás and has been in Brazil since. Besides his CVC duties, he is also a business angel and he had been an entrepreneur for three years.
