Matteo Sarzana

Matteo Sarzana is Airbnb Country Manager for Italy and Southeast Europe. A manager with more than 20 years of experience in digital, the platform economy and B2C business scaling in Italy, he oversees operations and guides the company’s growth strategy in key markets in the Mediterranean area, with particular attention to expanding the tourist offer beyond art cities and consolidating Airbnb’s presence in villages and rural locations.

In 2006 he became Team Leader of TeamAlfa, the WPP team dedicated to Alfa Romeo, managing its communication first in Italy and then at a global level. In 2008, after a period in the United States, he returned to Italy to lead the launch of VML, the digital agency of the WPP group, taking it from scratch to a team of more than 35 professionals and acquiring clients such as Costa Crociere, Barilla, Ford, Microsoft, Vodafone, Danone and Colgate.

Driven by the desire to innovate, he attended Singularity University in Silicon Valley, a study program focused on training the professionals of the future. The experience proved to be decisive: he decided to leave the world of agencies to dedicate himself to startups and joined Zooppa, a platform created within H-Farm which offers an alternative communication model based on a network of more than 300,000 crowdsourced creatives, as General Manager Europe.

In October 2015 he brought Deliveroo to Italy (when food delivery practically didn’t exist in the country) and led its expansion for almost ten years as General Manager. Under his leadership, the company grew from 4 employees to more than 160, expanding the service to more than 1,700 Italian cities and building an ecosystem that involves more than 21,000 partner restaurants and supermarkets. Over the years he also served as President of Assodelivery, the Italian association of the food delivery sector.

In March 2025, Airbnb announced his appointment as Country Manager for Italy and Southeast Europe. Among the main challenges: driving the growth of widespread tourism (almost half of travelers in Italy already use Airbnb to visit villages and rural locations) and seizing the opportunities related to the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, of which Airbnb is official worldwide partner.

It is estimated that, in conjunction with the event, stays on Airbnb will generate a positive economic impact of 154 million euros. He is the author of “App Economy” (Egea, 2016), a book that explores the birth and impact of mobile applications on the economy and society, published in collaboration with Talent Garden and the Bocconi University publishing house.