Meet the former Goldman Sachs exec who became the America's Cup Partnership's first CEO and is running the 175-year-old trophy like a startup

(Credit: Copyright by Amerigo Vespucci, Courtesy of the America's Cup Partnership.)

On July 4th weekend, the America’s Cup, sailing’s oldest trophy, returned to the Hudson River aboard the Italian Navy’s historic 1931 tall ship, the Amerigo Vespucci, known internationally as “the most beautiful ship in the world,” which carried the Cup to New York’s harbor as part of the 250th-anniversary Sail4th naval review. Standing beside it was Marzio Perrelli, a few months into the job as the first-ever CEO of the America’s Cup Partnership, and a man who spent 25 years actively avoiding sports for a living.

“I’m here because there was this big event for the 250th anniversary, and the Amerigo Vespucci was here, so we brought the Cup on it,” Perrelli told Fortune in the equally ornate teak woodwork and hand-carved ornamented lobby of New York’s Algonquin Hotel, just days after the storied ship entered New York’s harbor. “That was an opportunity to bring the Cup back to New York, where everything started almost two centuries ago.”