Francesco is the CEO and co-funder of Hexxcell Ltd. With a background in Chemical and Process Systems Engineering, he has a track-record of developing industrial digital solutions from ideation to deployment in the field, with particular focus on hybrid-AI models for monitoring, optimization and predictive maintenance of process and energy systems. Prior to Hexxcell, Francesco worked as a Development Specialist at Praxair Technology Center (now Linde) in Buffalo, NY, where he focused on mathematical optimization of cryogenic multi-stream heat exchangers and air separation units.
He has been elected as a Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (FIChemE) in 2025, Fellow of the Energy Institute (FEI) in 2023. He has served as a Director (2019-2021) and Chair (2024-2025) of the Fuels&Petrochemical Division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). Since 2015 he has been one of the two elected representatives for the UK serving on the Scientific Committee of the International Heat Transfer Conferences, the top global conference in the field. He was elected to the UK National Heat Transfer Committee in 2014, and subsequently appointed as its Secretary in 2016. He has been the chair of several national and international conferences, including two Topical Conferences at the AIChE Spring Meeting on Refining Processing and on Heat Exchangers (which he initiated in 2020).
Francesco has co-edited a monograph dedicated to Crude Oil Fouling, published over 90 journal articles and conference proceedings and is the Executive Editor of Heat Exchanger Design Handbook.
He is also a part-time Associate Professor at Brunel University London where he contributed to the launch of a new Chemical Engineering Department and was visiting academic at Imperial College London (2016-2017).
He holds a Laurea degree in Chemical Engineering from Padova University, Italy, an MSc in Process Systems Engineering and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College London, UK. He was awarded by Imperial College London the Newitt Prize for best Computational PhD thesis in Chemical Engineering and the Townend prize for excellence in research in the area of fuel production.