Growing up in Milan, Italy, Daniele Villa, president of sales and operations at Visit Duluth, looked to the skies. At 17, he earned a pilot’s license, and, not long after, he took up professional skydiving.
“I liked being in the air,” Villa explains. “It was a passion of mine.” After many years of competing, Villa and his sky-diving team became Italy’s national champions, representing their country in the World Championships of Formation Skydiving multiple times.
Villa notes one thing about skydiving he really liked was the teamwork involved. The four skydivers in his competition group were judged by the number of formations they put together in 35 seconds from the moment they left the airplane. “It’s how accurate and how fast you are as a team,” says Villa. “My biggest personal influence was being part of a team, working together as a team, and accomplishing successes together—not as an individual.”
When on the ground, Villa served as CEO of the Italian branch of GL Events, an event management company headquartered in Lyon, France, with which he helped organize many trade shows, as well as plan and launch an exhibition center in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
At the end of 2020, Villa and his family moved to Minnesota. It wasn’t his first time living in the North Star State—he and his wife, Monica, a Minnesotan, met while Villa was working in Minneapolis two decades ago. He joined Visit Duluth at the beginning of 2022.
“We all know each other in Duluth,” Villa notes. “Everybody is very reachable, flexible, and we understand the importance of meetings, events, and conventions.”
He can also see why so many are enamored with his new hometown, and he reflects on this from his, perhaps characteristically, elevated viewpoint.
“One of the things I hear the most is that when people who drive into Duluth almost reach the city,” he says, “they are on top of the hill, then they begin to drive down, and there is always a ‘wow effect.’ Because people who are not familiar with Duluth see the lake and see the Aerial Lift Bridge. It’s like, ‘Wow, I didn’t expect that.’ That’s the wow effect of Duluth!