Beyond the villas, boats and summer crowds, Lake Como has another community that rarely makes the guidebooks: founders, investors, executives and entrepreneurs who have chosen to make the lake home.
In short
Lake Como has always attracted wealth. Increasingly, however, it attracts people who are still building businesses, investing and working rather than simply retiring to the lake.
A loose international network has developed around Como, Cernobbio, Bellagio and the villages between them, but finding it isn't necessarily easy.
The most interesting connections tend to happen informally, over coffee, dinner, football or a boat ride rather than at something labelled a networking event.
There is more business happening here than you think
Spend enough time on Lake Como and you begin to notice something.
The person at the next table isn't necessarily here for a four-night stay.
They might be a British founder who sold a company five years ago. An American executive working remotely between Milan and London. A Swiss investor who lives across the border. A family office principal with a second home on the lake. Or an Italian entrepreneur running a manufacturing business that most visitors will never have heard of.
Como's international reputation is built on tourism, villas and extraordinary scenery.
Underneath it sits a much less visible economy.
And it is surprisingly difficult to access.
Lake Como doesn't need another networking event. It probably needs a way for the interesting people already here to discover one another.
The geography helps
Como occupies an unusual position.
Milan is close enough for business. Switzerland is almost next door. Malpensa connects the region internationally, while remote and hybrid working have made living outside a major commercial centre considerably easier.
That creates an interesting population.
Some live here permanently. Others divide their year between London, Milan, Zurich, Dubai, New York and the lake. Others own second homes and appear for increasingly long periods outside the traditional July and August season.
They aren't necessarily expatriates in the traditional sense.
They are internationally mobile business people who happen to have chosen Lake Como as one of their bases.
And that distinction matters.
The network already exists
There are formal organisations.
Como International Club has been operating for more than half a century and today has more than 160 English-speaking members.
Como 1907 has established the Lario Business Club, bringing companies together through football, hospitality and networking events.
Local chambers, professional organisations and business associations provide another layer.
But much of the international network remains informal.
It exists in WhatsApp groups. Introductions between neighbours. Golf clubs. Restaurants. School gates. Marinas. Cycling groups. Private dinners and the inevitable conversation that begins when somebody hears an English accent at the next table.
It is networking without calling itself networking.
Cernobbio offers a clue
For a few days every September, some of the world's most influential business and political figures descend on Villa d'Este for the TEHA Forum.
CEOs, investors, economists, politicians and policymakers arrive in Cernobbio for one of Europe's best-known gatherings of its kind.
Then they leave.
But plenty of people operating businesses, deploying capital and advising companies are here throughout the year.
That is perhaps the overlooked opportunity.
Lake Como doesn't need to become Davos on water.
Quite the opposite.
Its attraction is precisely that it isn't.
A breakfast involving eight interesting people could be more valuable than a conference involving 800.
Forget the name badge
Traditional networking would feel slightly wrong here.
Nobody moves to Lake Como because they want another 7am referral breakfast in a conference hotel.
The lake lends itself to something different.
Six founders having dinner in Bellagio.
A dozen business owners meeting for lunch in Como.
Investors taking a boat across the lake to somewhere they haven't eaten before.
A small group walking from Griante to San Martino before lunch.
A private table where the only qualification for attending is that you have something interesting to contribute.
No exhibition stands. No lanyards. No thirty-second elevator pitches.
The surroundings do most of the work.
The opportunity for Lake Como
There is a broader point here too.
International residents don't just bring spending power.
They bring businesses, investment, contacts, experience and connections to other markets.
Connecting that community more effectively with Como's established Italian entrepreneurial base could be considerably more valuable than creating an expat bubble.
Como and Lecco already have a substantial indigenous business economy encompassing manufacturing, textiles, engineering, hospitality, property, design and professional services.
Put those two communities together and things become interesting.
Not Italians on one side and foreigners on the other.
People who happen to share the same lake.
Perhaps we should start something
The more time you spend here, the more often you hear the same sentence:
Perhaps that tells us everything.
The network already exists.
It just hasn't been properly connected yet.
And maybe the best business network on Lake Como won't look much like a business network at all.
"I had no idea you lived here too."
Written by The Como Private Desk
4 minutes