Excellera Launches Media Tracking and MR Firm

In Milan, strategic communications company Excellera Advisory Group has launched Excellera Intelligence, a new business offering clients media intelligence, reputation analysis, customised market and opinion research and real-time monitoring of legislation.

The Group, backed by Xenon Private Equity and itself founded only in November 2022, acquired data science firm INTWIG in September last year, and has now added its data science expertise to its own multidisciplinary teams to create the new unit. INTWIG founder Aldo Cristadoro (pictured) will serve as CEO of Excellera Intelligence.

Excellera has already acquired five other firms in its short life to date, including Italian financial comms company Barabino & Partners, lobbying and political intell firm Cattaneo Zanetto Pomposo & Co, and healthcare consultancy Value Relations. The Group employs more than 300 people and has offices in new York as well as other European cities.

Group CEO Paolo Zanetto told web site PRovoke Media that his company sees the 'absence of data-driven decision-making' in the corporate affairs sector as a 'crucial gap'. He stated: 'We looked around for a pretty rare beast - someone with strong knowledge of data science and research, who could really understand what corporate affairs is. We found that in Aldo - an expert in data science applied to public opinion, who had previously worked at major firms including Ipsos - and spent six months working together with him and his team on one very big challenge: how do we make our advice in the corporate affairs space data driven and evidence based?'

The new firm, Excellera Intelligence, aims to break down barriers between public affairs, media intelligence, financial communications and market research, by integrating diverse sources of data into a proprietary 'data lake' which is analysed using AI to provide predictive insights. In Zanetto's words: 'We wanted to create magic with AI and find correlations between news and events: let's see if financial news has an effect on social media, for instance'.

Cristadoro says the new company was 'founded on the recognition that AI is reshaping corporate affairs and that it can open up new strategic opportunities for businesses'. As part of the mix, the firm offers tailor-made research to study the behaviour and opinions of national and international populations, combining this with examination of market trends based on analysis of publicly available data.

Web site: www.excelleragroup.com/excellera-intelligence-2 .