Federico Veneroni is 28, born in Milan, and has spent his adult life doing the opposite of what was expected of him. He left a finance degree at Bocconi University in his final year, talked his way into a UK training career over a single frustrated night, and has spent the years since building an online coaching business for busy professionals — people, as he puts it, "extremely successful at everything except their own body." He sent us two photos of himself at the exact same body weight, years apart, and asked us to run them side by side. We asked him to walk us through the rest.
Men's Active: Let's start with how you ended up in London.
Federico Veneroni: The move to London was sudden. I had just turned 22 and had just left university. A couple of gyms in Milan had approached me to run the service side of their clubs, and a month later I still had no start date. One night, after an evening out with friends, I got home frustrated and started sending my CV to every gym in the UK I could find. I wanted somewhere more stimulating than Italy for my career. The next morning my inbox was full of gyms asking to see me straight away. Two weeks later I was living in London. That was 2019.
MA: Your background is economics, not fitness. Was an office job ever really the plan?
FV: No. An office was supposed to be the plan, according to my parents, and I studied Economics and Finance at Bocconi University in Milan. I left in my final year because I never saw myself behind a desk. Coaching was the natural path. I qualified as a personal trainer at 18 and was already coaching people all through university — first in Italy, then in London once I moved. My client base is worldwide now.
