Among the most creative business minds of Italy, Antonelli was the director of record company SugarMusic from 1993 to 2002.

A journalist from 2003 to 2011, he was editor-in-chief of the Italian edition of the monthly Rolling Stone. In 2011, he joined Condè Nast Italia, first as editor of the magazine Wired Italia, founding Wired Next Fest, and then men’s magazine GQ Italia, giving life to the GQ Freak Out Festival.

In 2009, he co-founded the film studio First Sun with Luca Guadagnino, and was an executive producer for the Guadagnino films Suspiria and Io Sono l’Amore, as well as cultural anthropologist for Guadagnino’s film Call Me By Your Name.

As a university professor, he collaborates with architectural design and research centres. In 2022, he was director of the Knowledge, Research and Development “Business International” unit of Fiera Milano, of which he is currently an advisor. In the same year, he founded the meeting Creating the Blockchain in collaboration with NERO Editions and Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, which was then followed by the research project Page Not Found, incorporated into the Osservatorio sul futuro dell’editoria [Observatory on the future of publishing] 2023.

He is the editorial director of Mudec United, the new publication of MUDEC – Museum of Culture Milan.