Advancing the Mission
A Coalition of Allies
Guided by the leadership, expertise, partnerships, and resources of our core team, national committees, subcommittees, and International Board of Allies, The Allies Museum will stand as a world-class institution dedicated to remembrance, education, and honoring the sacrifices of the Italian campaign.
Responsible for day-to-day operations, management, and growth, the Founding Directors guide the museum’s strategic direction and oversee its programs, partnerships, and resources. They coordinate with key stakeholders and experts to expand the museum’s reach, build national and international collaborations, and ensure that its mission, to commemorate those who served and educate future generations, is carried out with excellence, accuracy, and lasting impact.
Reed Cataldo is an Italian-American business executive born in the United States. He has led brand and growth strategy around the world. Since meeting Guido Molinari in 2011, the two have co-founded various projects, beginning with an award-winning consumer goods company based in Italy, the U.K., and the U.S. In 2017, they launched a consulting firm focused on emerging technology and education, which was ranked among the Inc. 500 fastest-growing U.S. companies in both 2022 and 2023. Through this work, they became interested in applying Generative AI to make education and history more accessible and engaging. Reed grew up hearing stories of World War II from his grandfather, who served in the U.S. Army’s 358th Engineer General Service Regiment, landing at Omaha Beach during the D-Day invasion, and participating in the Liberation of France at the age of 19.
Guido Molinari is an Italian-American business executive born in Italy. He has lived and worked on both sides of the Atlantic, starting his career in investment banking in London. Since meeting Reed Cataldo in 2011, the two have co-founded various projects, beginning with an award-winning consumer goods company based in Italy, the U.K., and the U.S. In 2017, they launched a consulting firm focused on emerging technology and education, which was ranked among the Inc. 500 fastest-growing U.S. companies in both 2022 and 2023. Their latest work explores the use of Generative AI to make education and history more accessible and engaging. Guido grew up hearing stories of World War II about his grandfather, who was an Italian civilian working to rebuild the country’s train lines during the war.
NATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR ITALY
Composed of senior advisors, military experts, and university scholars, the committee serves as the museum’s dedicated body for domestic engagement—coordinating relationships with Italian government officials, public institutions, cultural associations, and partner museums. It advances the museum’s mission and visibility through strategic support and guidance in Italy.
Italian diplomat with extensive experience in international relations, currently Senior Advisor to the Defense Minister. He has served as Diplomatic Advisor to the Prime Minister, Ambassador to Israel, Permanent Representative to NATO, Consul General in New York, and Special Envoy of the Foreign Minister to Afghanistan. His career has encompassed bilateral diplomacy, high-level defense policy coordination, multilateral NATO engagement, and crisis response in global hotspots, supported by a wide network of senior contacts across allied governments and international institutions.
Subcommittee: Italian Historical Executive Committee
Historian specializing in twentieth-century Italian history and international relations, focused on Anglo-American strategy and the Allied occupation of Italy. Assistant Professor at the University of Naples Federico II; former research experience at the Einaudi Foundation in Turin and the Universities of Padua and Messina, with visiting research at Georgetown and Oxford. His work examines preinvasion planning, diplomacy, disarmament, and military government in Italy. He contributes expertise to the museum’s mission—Allied decision-making, occupation policies, and Italy’s wartime and postwar transition in the Italian campaign.
Subcommittee: Italian Historical Executive Committee
Professor of History of International Relations at Catholic University of the Sacred Heart and contributor to the Italian Institute for International Political Studies. His research examines links between Italian anti-fascism, the Resistance, and Anglo-American policy, focused on the British Special Operations Executive in wartime Italy. Author of The Italian Resistance and the British Special Operations Executive and Great Britain and Italian Anti-Fascism: Clandestine Diplomacy, Intelligence, Special Operations. His work illuminates Allied clandestine support to partisans, wartime diplomacy, and post-liberation memory.
Historian and tactics specialist in twentieth-century Italian military history, focused on Cassino and urban operations. A retired Colonel of the Italian Army, he served for twelve years in the Folgore Paratroopers Brigade before being assigned to the Infantry School of Cesano. He was deployed to international missions in Somalia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Kosovo. Author of Cassino 1944; Assault to Albaneta Farm; Assault on Cassino. Cavallaro collaborates with military-history organizations and gives seminars for professionals.
Subcommittee: Italian Historical Executive Committee
Historian specializing in twentieth-century Italian military history, with a focus on Italy during the Second World War. Associate Professor (Adjunct) at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario, and a lecturer at the Guglielmo Marconi Telematic University. He is the author of Mussolini's Army in the French Riviera: Italy's Occupation of France, and co-editor of Italy and the Second World War: Alternative Perspectives. Dr. Sica collaborates with the Italian Historical Service of the Defense and the French Historical Service of the Defense, along with other military history and defense-related research groups.
NATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Composed of senior military officers, defense officials, historians, and curators, the committee serves as the museum's principal link to American institutions, supporting partnerships with government agencies, military organizations, academic institutions, and historical bodies. It provides expert guidance and helps build public and private support and resources, and ensures the museum's work reflects American contributions while preserving the enduring legacy of the American soldiers who served in the Italian campaign.
Frank Blazich Jr., Ph.D.
Curator of Modern Military History
Smithsonian Institution
A public historian and curator specializing in the United States armed forces from 1900 to the present with a doctorate from The Ohio State University. He has curated the Smithsonian’s D-Day, June 6, 1944, Price of Freedom, and War and Remembrance exhibitions and led historical programs at the U.S. Navy Seabee Museum and the Naval History and Heritage Command. His current role includes overseeing national WWI, WWII, Vietnam War, and naval history collections and exhibitions. His honours include the Smithsonian Secretary’s Research Prize, the Smithsonian Unsung Hero Award, and the Médaille de la Défense nationale echelon bronze, French Army and Foreign Legion, for contributions to Allied military history.
David Kohnen, Ph.D.
Captain T.B. Kittredge Historian
Naval War College
A maritime historian and professor with a Ph.D. from King’s College London, he served as founding director of the John B. Hattendorf Center for Maritime Historical Research at the U.S. Naval War College and as executive director of the Naval War College Museum. A retired U.S. Naval intelligence officer, having served thirty years in both peace and war as punctuated by multiple deployments at sea and ashore among the seagoing ranks of the fleet, his scholarship on Allied naval strategy in the Second World War includes operations in the Mediterranean and Italian campaign. Author of King's Navy: Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King and the Rise of American Sea Power, 1897–1947, he has received awards including the American Association of Museums’ Excellence in Exhibition and the Thea Award for the U-505 Submarine exhibit at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
Robert Dalessandro
American Battle Monuments Commission
A military historian and former U.S. Army colonel, with service as director of the U.S. Army Center of Military History at Fort Lesley J. McNair, and chairing the World War One Centennial Commission in Washington, D.C., established by the U.S. Congress in 2013. His current responsibilities include overseeing 26 U.S. military cemeteries and 31 memorials in 17 countries as the acting secretary of the American Battle Monuments Commission. His honours include the Legion of Merit, Meritorious Service Medal, and the Army Historical Foundation Award.
*United States Department of Defense Liaison
Dr. Erin Mahan
Office of the Secretary of Defense
Senior historian serving as Chief Historian, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and director of the Pentagon Library. She previously served as chief of the Division of Arms Control in the State Department, editing Foreign Relations of the United States Series volumes on a host of regions. At the Pentagon, she is general editor of the Secretaries of Defense Historical Series, has published widely on a variety of military and diplomatic history topics, including Cold War arms control, NATO, WWI and WWII. She was a DoD Liaison to the World War I Centennial Commission from 2014-2018.
“In the Italian campaign, we had demonstrated as never before how a polyglot army could be welded into a team of allies with the strength and unity and determination to prevail over formidable odds."
General Mark W. Clark
Commander of the Allied 15th Army Group
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