At 8pm on a Friday winter evening, Claudio Luti would usually be on his way to St Moritz; week days are for working hard, but weekends are spent out of the city – skiing in the mountains from Christmas to Easter, and by the sea in Portofino during summer. But Luti, owner of the Italian company Kartell, which is known for its brightly coloured acrylic furniture, hasn’t yet left his office. Last October, he took over as the president of Cosmit, the company that runs the Salone Internazionale del Mobile – Milan’s furniture fair that takes place every April.

The Salone, which hosts almost 2,000 companies, 700 young designers and about 300,000 visitors, is by far the biggest fair of its kind. But Luti is pragmatic about the competition from other shows, and the scale of his responsibility to encourage the innovation and quality that will keep the Salone in first place. While it attracts exhibitors from around the world, first and foremost it is the flag-bearer of the Italian furniture trade.

“Most companies are doing around 35 per cent export – that’s the average,” says Luti. “There are many small companies and they just survive inside the Italian market. But now Italy, Greece, Spain are in a state of crisis and we have to look at every possible new market.”