^{Words by Allegra Salvadori}

In Riyadh, within the quiet precision of Technogym’s new flagship showroom, I met CEO Nerio Alessandri — a designer-thinker whose vision has shaped not just a brand, but an entire culture of wellness.

The opening of Technogym’s new flagship showroom in Riyadh marks a defining moment for the brand in the Gulf. More than a commercial unveiling, the space introduces a design language that feels almost architectural in its discipline: clean lines, calibrated proportions, and materials that speak in a quiet, confident register. It is the brand’s largest showroom outside Italy — and it reads less like retail, and more like a manifesto.

This setting offered the perfect moment to sit down with Nerio Alessandri, founder and CEO of Technogym, who created the company at just twenty-two. The story is widely known; the mindset that shaped it is not. In Riyadh, surrounded by the brand’s newest expressions, he retraced the conceptual structure behind Technogym’s global vision.“I started as an industrial designer,” he tells me, “and for me design has always meant innovation.” From this simple premise, a global ecosystem was born.

Innovation as a First Principle

When I ask him how the design thinking of a 22-year-old evolved into the company we see today, Alessandri answers without hesitation. “The approach has always been the same, which is innovation. From day one to today, it’s about changing, changing, changing to improve, to improve.” Then he offers the line that defines the entire conversation: “If it works and it’s successful, our mantra says that it’s obsolete.” He doesn’t say it for effect; he says it because he believes it. Where many see success as consolidation, Alessandri sees it as the moment of rupture — the point when change becomes non-negotiable. Innovation, for him, is not a linear progression but a living organism: dynamic, unpredictable, capable of evolving beyond itself. “Innovation is a constant change,” he continues. “Even in a discontinuous way, even in a disruptive way.” This explains why Technogym has never remained still. Its identity is built on perpetual motion.

Thinking Beyond Fitness — Before the Market Existed

I ask him how, in the early 1980s, he managed to think beyond bodybuilding when the industry barely existed: “When we started in 1983–84, people only talked about bodybuilding, not wellness. The sector didn’t exist.” Looking back, the strategy feels inevitable. At the time, it was radical. “We didn’t want to speak only to bodybuilders,” he explains. “We wanted to create solutions for people — different people with different needs.” This intuition expanded the company’s universe long before the market understood how vast it could be. What followed became Technogym’s true cultural horizon: sport, performance, longevity, rehabilitation, prevention, lifestyle. “We expanded the market with new technologies, and with product and service customisations for clusters — people with different needs and passions.” In Alessandri’s view, innovation is not about the object. It is about who the object serves.

The Shift from Fitness to Wellness: A Cultural Revolution

Wellness today is a global vocabulary. But Alessandri reminds me that, when Technogym introduced it, the word had no place in the industry. “When we introduced the word wellness, nobody used it,” he says. “The world spoke only about fitness. But fitness is only one moment. Wellness is a culture, a lifestyle.” His articulation of wellness is not marketing language; it is almost philosophical. Wellness connects movement, nutrition, prevention, mental balance, and the pleasure of living well. It is a holistic lens through which to understand the contemporary body. And this is why Technogym has always felt like more than a brand. It is a cultural project — one that continues to shape not only how we exercise, but how we inhabit our lives.

A Showroom as a Spatial Manifesto

Walking through the new Riyadh showroom, this philosophy becomes spatial. The layout is not decorative; it is intentional. Each area demonstrates a different ecosystem, from connected equipment to lifestyle products, arranged with Italian clarity and purpose. The space reads as an extension of Alessandri’s worldview: functional yet emotional, rigorous yet human, intelligent but never intimidating.  It is a place where technology is not displayed as an object, but as an experience. In Riyadh, the brand is not merely presenting products — it is presenting a way of life.

A Worldview Shaped by Design

Throughout our conversation, design emerges not as a visual tool but as a cognitive framework. For Alessandri, design is the architecture of progress — the way we organise ideas, experiences, bodies, and spaces to live better. He speaks about innovation the way architects speak about light: not as an aesthetic, but as a structural necessity. Technogym’s evolution — its technologies, ecosystems, materials, digital platforms — becomes a refusal to remain static. Movement is not only the product; it is the identity.

A Closing Note on Vision

Speaking to Alessandri in Riyadh — in a showroom that symbolises Technogym’s commitment to the region — feels like sitting inside a philosophy rather than a commercial setting. He is precise, grounded, and expansive: an industrial designer who built a global movement; a CEO who speaks about innovation with the poetic clarity of someone who has lived it. What stays with me is a final sentence, delivered almost casually but shaped by forty years of practice: “Innovation is our nature.” And in Riyadh, that nature has found a new home.