Marco Granelli is the President of Confartigianato Imprese, the Confederation that represents 700,000 artisans, micro and small businesses.Granelli was born in 1962 in Salsomaggiore (Parma) where he owns a company in the construction sector. He is married and has two children. He has long been involved in associative activity: from 2012 to 2020 he was Deputy Vice President of Confartigianato and since 2009 he led Confartigianato Emilia Romagna after having been, since 2004, the presidency of Confartigianato Imprese Parma.Confartigianato Imprese is the largest European network for representing interests and providing services to crafts and small businesses. Founded in 1946, it associates 700,000 companies belonging to dozens of different sectors and in which the tradition of ancient crafts and the innovation of activities that use cutting-edge technologies coexist. Confartigianato operates throughout Italy with a national office in Rome and 1,201 territorial offices, which are part of 103 provincial associations and 21 regional federations, where 10,700 people work every day in the service of artisans and small entrepreneurs. Crafts and small businesses.There are 1,292,000 artisan businesses in Italy, equal to 22% of the total of Italian businesses. They employ approximately 2,700,000 employees including owners, collaborators and employees. Together with micro enterprises (which employ up to 10 employees) they reach the number of 4.2 million companies (equal to 94.9% of the total of Italian companies) with 7.6 million employees (equal to 44% of total employees of Italian companies). Without crafts and small businesses spread across the territory, made in Italy would not exist and Italy would not be the second largest manufacturing country in Europe and a global leader in the sectors of excellence: agri-food, fashion, wood-furniture and mechanics. Handicraft is present in all manufacturing and service sectors: from food to metalworking, from furniture to construction, from fashion to the transport of goods and people up to the installation of systems, from the restoration of works of art to 'hi tech and biotechnology. In the DNA of Italian artisans and small entrepreneurs there are multiform creativity and a stubborn will to overcome their limits and imagine new horizons. There is the drive to experiment, to innovate using the digital lever but retaining the essence of beauty and the value of functionality. The result of all this is a wealth of know-how, productivity, competence, specialization, incremental innovation. Economic and employment heritage, but also the history and culture of the area, a factor of social cohesion and future prospects for young people who reinvent the family business or who give life to new initiatives. Confartigianato accompanies entrepreneurs, encourages them in the paths of innovation, helps them to protect and enhance the "artisan value", the distinctive factor that makes Italian products unique in the world, the trump card for becoming large while remaining small and for reacting to the crisis caused by the pandemic.