It's about expertise

THE ROOTS

AB Export was founded in 1985 in Castel d'Azzano, Verona. The initials carry the surnames of the founders: Roberto Bellaro and Emanuela Aldrighetti. A company built on direct expertise, not on capital or industry heritage. Roberto had been working in the furnishing sector since 1975. When he founded AB Export, he already had ten years of hands-on production experience behind him and a precise conviction: quality design deserved far wider markets than manufacturers could reach on their own.

What he built over the following twenty years was a bridge. Between Italian producers who did not yet have an export structure and international clients — especially Asian ones — who were looking for a reliable partner in Europe. He was not an agent handing out price lists. He was someone who knew the products, understood the markets, and delivered results. Many Italian design brands opened up to international markets partly thanks to that work.

By 2006 turnover had exceeded €3.7 million. In 2007 the Veneto Chamber of Commerce awarded AB Export the Regional Marco Polo Prize, 19th edition, with the mention 'For The Best Partner'.

Emanuela Aldrighetti supported Roberto throughout the company's history, ensuring the administrative and financial solidity that allowed steady growth. She remains today the CFO and institutional point of reference for AB Design Group.

Roberto deserves the credit for believing, before anyone else, that quality could speak the language of the world. This is still the foundation of everything we do.

THE TRANSITION

In 2020, Alessandro Bellaro and Arianna Chierici joined the company. A choice that had matured over time, accelerated by necessity. Both graduates in architecture from Politecnico di Milano, they brought a design-led background and a different vision of what AB Export could become.

The change was gradual and deliberate. The buying company evolved into something different: a firm that does not simply connect supply and demand, but specifies, designs, manages construction sites and delivers complete projects. Our fee is separate from the product because we believe that whoever manages a project must answer only to the project, not to the commercial interests that derive from it. It is a methodological choice before being a business model.

The name AB Design Group tells this story. The initials are the same. The scope is far broader.

WHO WE ARE TODAY

We are a bridge. Between those who make and those who design, between those who have an idea and those who must realise it, between quality international manufacturing and the markets that seek it.

Alessandro Bellaro leads commercial direction and international development. Forty years of relationships built by the company across Asia became his school: he knows Eastern markets with the depth of someone who has frequented them his whole life, and brings this expertise to today's projects, from Singapore to South-East Asia and the European markets. He is also Head of International Sales for Elmar Cucine.

Arianna Chierici is an architect and designer. She manages architectural and interior design projects, from space planning to working drawings, from site supervision to contractor coordination and planning applications in Italy. Her method takes her to site with every detail already defined, with working drawings that leave as little room as possible for the unexpected, with the precision of someone who knows that a well-prepared project is delivered better, on time and in quality.

Emanuela Aldrighetti ensures the continuity that holds past and present together: administration, finance, and the institutional memory of four decades of activity.

We operate from Castel d'Azzano, Verona. Over time we have invested in our own logistics infrastructure, with a warehouse, transport vehicles and the capacity to prepare protected shipments to any destination worldwide. A service designed for our partners, who can rely on a single point of reference from specification to delivery, wherever the project may be.

Asian culture and Italian culture coexist in our way of working. Asia taught us patience in relationships, respect for the process, a long-term vision. Italy gave us an eye for quality, a sensitivity for detail, the ability to turn a material into an emotion. Bringing these two worlds together is what makes us different.

Forty years. Two generations. One direction.

AB Design Group. Worldwide, no boundaries.