Andrea Loreni
Senior leaders make their hardest calls when the cost of being wrong is visible and personal. Composure under that kind of pressure is not a wellness topic; it is an operating capability that decides whether the right decision actually gets made. Most leadership development trains the analysis. Almost none of it trains the moment of action.
Andrea Loreni is an Italian high-altitude tightrope walker, Zen practitioner and philosopher who works with leaders on composure, fear and decision-making under extreme pressure.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Andrea Loreni
- He is the only Italian tightrope walker specialised in high-altitude urban crossings. The lived authority is unusual in a leadership-keynote market saturated with frameworks.
- He set Italy’s record for the highest city tightrope walk in May 2023, crossing 205 metres at 140 metres altitude between Milan’s Bosco Verticale and the UniCredit Tower. Senior audiences recognise the difference between a story and a verifiable feat.
- His material is built on a degree in Theoretical Philosophy and Zen training under Shodo Harada Roshi at the Sogen-Ji monastery in Okayama. The intellectual scaffolding is real, not decorative.
- He works the specific tension between fear and decision quality, which sits at the centre of senior leadership but is rarely addressed with credibility outside therapeutic or sports-psychology framings.
- He is published in Italian on the discipline, with two books from Funambolo Edizioni, and has spoken at TED, universities, banks and multinationals.
Biography highlights
- The only Italian tightrope walker specialised in high-altitude crossings, performing since 2006 across Italy, Switzerland, Serbia, Israel, Thailand and Japan.
- Set Italy’s record for the highest urban tightrope walk in May 2023, between Milan’s Bosco Verticale and the UniCredit Tower (covered by CNN).
- Set an earlier Italian record in 2011 at Pennabilli, 250 metres at 90 metres altitude.
- Degree in Theoretical Philosophy; Zen meditation deepened at Sogen-Ji monastery in Okayama, Japan, under Shodo Harada Roshi.
- Author of “Zen e funambolismo” (2019) and “Breve corso di funambolismo per chi cammina col vento” (2020).
- TED speaker; collaborates with Giulia Schiavone (University of Milan-Bicocca) on tightrope walking as a discipline of personal transformation.
Biography
In May 2023, a man walked 205 metres of cable strung 140 metres above central Milan, between the Bosco Verticale and the UniCredit Tower. It was Italy’s highest ever urban tightrope walk. CNN covered it. The walker was Andrea Loreni, the only Italian funambulist who specialises in high-altitude crossings.
What makes him useful to corporate audiences is not the spectacle. It is what he has had to learn to make the spectacle survivable. Loreni has a degree in Theoretical Philosophy and trained in Zen meditation at the Sogen-Ji monastery in Okayama, Japan, under Shodo Harada Roshi. His working material is the relationship between fear, attention and decision quality at the moment of action.
He has performed cable crossings since 2006, in Turin, Bologna, Rome, Venice, Florence, Genoa, Brescia and Trieste, and abroad in Switzerland, Serbia, Israel, Thailand and Japan. He is also the author of two books on the discipline, published in Italian: “Zen e funambolismo” (2019) and “Breve corso di funambolismo per chi cammina col vento” (2020). With Giulia Schiavone of the University of Milan-Bicocca, he researches the tightrope as a vehicle for transformation, not only performance.
The keynote sits at a precise point. Senior leaders are asked to act with composure under conditions where the cost of error is high and personal. Loreni does that for a living, on a 20mm rope above a city, and he has the philosophical training to articulate what makes it work.
Key speaking topics
- Composure and decision-making under extreme pressure
- Fear, risk and acceptance
- Zen practice applied to performance
- Managing imbalance and change
- Attention and presence in high-stakes moments
- Personal transformation through discipline
Ideal for
- Senior leadership offsites and executive team gatherings where the agenda includes pressure, composure and decision quality
- Sales and trading floor audiences accustomed to live decision risk
- Annual conferences seeking a substantive keynote with lived authority rather than business-school content
- Leadership development programmes for newly senior leaders
Audience outcomes
- A vivid, credible reframe of fear as something to live with rather than defeat
- Specific Zen-rooted attentional practice connected to high-stakes performance
- A new vocabulary for talking about composure, balance and risk in leadership settings
- A memorable shared reference point that surfaces in subsequent leadership conversations
Talks
A reflection on attention, presence and the discipline of standing in front of what is, drawn from years of high-altitude tightrope walking and Zen practice.
Key takeaways:
- How sustained attention is trained, not summoned
- Why fear is a working condition, not an obstacle to be removed
- The link between Zen presence and decision quality under pressure
A keynote that draws on Loreni’s book and his practice at Sogen-Ji to connect Zen discipline with the lived experience of acting under extreme risk.
Key takeaways:
- The relationship between balance, breath and decision in extreme conditions
- Practical Zen-rooted attentional practice for high-stakes work
- How a discipline of acceptance changes the experience of risk
A workshop-style session for leadership audiences on how to live with uncertainty as an operating mode rather than a temporary disturbance.
Key takeaways:
- A working model of imbalance as the normal state of senior decision-making
- Specific techniques for staying functional when the stakes are visible
- A reframe of fear that survives contact with real organisational pressure