Jacopo Romei
Short biography:
Jacopo Romei is a consultant, serial entrepreneur, author, trainer and speaker. He works with people who want to waste less time, money, and enthusiasm in knowledge work, from contract negotiation to organisational governance, to building new ventures with minimal risk.
He introduced agile practices at eBay Italia, Siemens, and FAO, founded three companies, and attended Nassim N. Taleb’s Real World Risk workshop in New York.
He is the author of Extreme Contracts, an 8-principle framework for transforming negotiation into continuous collaboration, and co-founder of Scaling Tales, working with teams in Italy, France, and the UK.
By 2011, having founded three companies and closed two, Jacopo understood something fundamental: the problem is almost never purely technical. It lives in organisational governance and in the agreements people negotiate with each other. That insight became the through-line of everything that followed: contributor to Cocoon Projects, board member of the European Organisation Design Forum (EODF), and, in 2018, participant in Nassim N. Taleb’s five-day Real World Risk workshop in New York, an experience that deepened his thinking on antifragility applied to contracts and organisations.
The most developed expression of that work is the book Extreme Contracts, first published in 2017 and completed in its English edition in 2023. The book distils eight principles for transforming knowledge work negotiation into continuous collaboration, not a theory of contracts, but an operational framework for anyone delivering value in environments marked by volatile requirements, uncertainty, and high complexity. Extreme Contracts has become a reference point for freelancers, agile teams, managers, and entrepreneurs worldwide, and is also available as a workshop with Avanscoperta.
Today Jacopo is co-founder of Scaling Tales and works with teams in Italy, France, and the UK, supporting startups, established companies, and independent professionals in building new ventures with minimal waste and maximum strategic alignment.
He speaks regularly at national and international conferences, including DDD Europe and KanDDDinsky, on how work is changing in the knowledge economy.
He is co-founder of the Agile Lean Europe network, PHP User Group Roma, and Arduino User Group Roma. He holds a sailing licence, a glider pilot licence, and is a certified LEGO® Serious Play® facilitator.
Books
Jacopo Romei is the author of the book Extreme Contracts.
Articles and Interviews
In February 2018, Avanscoperta sponsored Jacopo to fly to New York to take part in a 5-day workshop titled “Real World Risk” led by Nassim N. Taleb and he recorded his impressions on our blog! Read the full story.
More articles by Jacopo Romei:
- LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® per una migliore collaborazione e comunicazione nei team
- Contratti Agili: punta dritto alla buona collaborazione
- Presente e futuro del Management: la metafora della maratona: Jacopo Romei interviews Gaetano Mazzanti.
Video
- Extreme Contracts
- 5 su 6 ce la fai – La roulette russa è un business sensato? Il rischio nello sviluppo software
- Antifragility: An Evening with Jacopo Romei
- Q&A: Extreme Contracts (parte 2), interviewed by Alberto Brandolini
- Q&A: Extreme Contracts (parte 1), interviewed by Fabio Fabbrucci.
- Extreme Contracts
- 5 su 6 ce la fai – La roulette russa è un business sensato? Il rischio nello sviluppo software
- Antifragility: An Evening with Jacopo Romei
- Q&A: Extreme Contracts (parte 2), interviewed by Alberto Brandolini
- Q&A: Extreme Contracts (parte 1), interviewed by Fabio Fabbrucci.
Contact Jacopo
Get in touch if you’d like to arrange a conversation with Jacopo Romei and explore together how we can support your project and your team.