Franco Gussalli Beretta is recounting his interests with an insouciance that few (besides James Bond) possess: vintage cars, timepieces, boats – he’s had love affairs with them all. He continues the list: “Scuba diving, sailing… flying small planes came later, so I didn’t become as confident at that. I think my passions are connected by a curiosity to see things from different angles. If you only see the world from the surface, you miss a lot.” (Read our Beretta gun reviews here.)

Unusually perhaps, given his role as president and chief executive officer of the gunmaking giant Beretta (the 15th generation of the family to take the helm), shooting and fieldsports do not really feature. “But you’re absolutely right, I have a lot of very nice invitations,” he laughs. Happily, his son Carlo, also with the firm, “is very passionate about hunting” and can sometimes deputise.

Despite an early notion of becoming a pastry chef (“my mother was Belgian and gave me lots of chocolate”) Franco found that his political science degree and national service proved useful foundations for a career negotiating military and police firearm contracts around the world. His brother Pietro, who studied economics, leads Beretta Holding and is responsible for the Group’s strategic and financial direction.

It’s striking how often Franco’s chosen pastimes combine the technical with the beautiful, however – “the passion for watches developed because of my love of mechanical devices”. They can only have helped hone his expertise in product development, manufacturing and marketing. Franco’s work has taken him all over the world, with the US a favourite destination (and Beretta’s largest export market): “I particularly love New York. Every time I go, there is something exciting and different.”

The UK’s shooting history has made it an important place for the Beretta family too. “Now that we have the Holland & Holland Shooting Ground, I’m so happy to see schoolchildren taken there to learn,” he says. We discuss the fact that many English shots never handle anything but a Beretta, given that the Silver Pigeon is the instructor’s weapon of choice: “It’s no secret that when my great-uncle Carlo wanted to develop an over-and-under, he took inspiration from England. He understood how many customers want a nice, reliable gun. We’ve always wanted to offer products at different price points and I’m grateful to him for that.” (Read 687 Silver Pigeon 500 Years review.)

It was to celebrate the opening of the Beretta Gallery in London – and his father’s 70th birthday – that Franco gave him a unique pair of SO10s (“it’s all about pairs in London”) and asked master engraver Ken Hunt to decorate them “to record my father’s story with our villa, his dogs – using seven colours of gold”. Linley made a suitably exquisite cabinet in which to store the guns, inspired by Villa Beretta, and Franco names these items as his favourite exhibits in Beretta’s fabled museum at its Gardone Val Trompia headquarters. There is a palpable affection and gratitude for senior family members who schooled him in the business, and a sense of confidence in the next generation following in Franco and Pietro’s footsteps.

Franco Gussalli Beretta (second from left) with (from left) Carlo Gussalli Beretta, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Pietro Gussalli Beretta

Although global defence spending has increased, hunting and sporting firearms remain at the heart of the business and continue to represent a significant share of its activities. Franco has his finger on the pulse of the younger generation’s interests. He talks with animation about the “double trend” of declining numbers of young guns and their growing interest in rifle shooting, fed by a wish to balance biodiversity and explore natural food sources. “This is why we entered into optics and expanded with [the acquisition of Finnish rifle maker] Sako. For sure, we are more known for the shotgun than the rifle but now we have a complete assortment and this, overall, is for the younger generation.” Franco points to the way sports like cycling have modernised to provide users with data, goals and more, and suggests the rifles of the future will do something similar. “The digital revolution has changed all our lives and in a traditional environment such as shooting and hunting there will be a new experience. We’re trying to understand what [digital innovations] could be matched with our world.”

While stepping back can hardly have been on his mind ahead of the 500th anniversary, at the age of 62 Franco admits there are friends “who query why I still go to the office and travel the world… but I enjoy it. There is more fun than headaches.” However, he does eventually see himself making more time for cars and boating – plus art, which he’s become interested in through his wife Umberta, an avid collector, and charity: “If you are lucky in life you need to give back.”

Beretta’s 500th anniversary has been celebrated in many ways, ranging from events to the launch of unique pieces, limited-edition guns and clothing. But it is the human interactions that have excited Franco most, welcoming retailers and top clients from around the world to Italy, and celebrating with staff and partners in the company of the Italian Prime Minister: “recognition for them and the whole valley of how much we have given to the Italian nation”.

We speak soon after the opening of the brothers’ new centre for innovation: an eye to the future even as Beretta celebrates its past. “We were born here and are still on the Mella River but we cannot survive into the future thinking ‘We are 500 years old, we will last forever’. We need to be as contemporary as possible from a product and manufacturing point of view. The new generation will start bringing in new concepts, and that is exciting.”

Read other interviews from The Field here.

Photography by Matteo Cinelli