Upon graduation at European Institute of Design in Rome, Mainetti moved to New York in 2003, attending the Parsons Institute of Design. In the same year she took the helm at Sorgente Group of America, overseeing real estate investment operations in the US. She took part in the acquisition of a significant stake in the Chrysler Building—reselling in 2008—and for the acquisition of the majority stake in the Flatiron Building in New York.
Career
Since 2003, Mainetti has worked on conservation and redevelopment projects of historic buildings in the United States, carried out through studies conducted by Sorgente Group of America, dedicated to sustainable, environmentally responsible development practices. 2012 saw the completion of two redeveloped buildings in New York City. These loft conversions, known as Giglio on Greene in Greene Street, Soho became the first under a new Giglio certificate in sustainable development practice created by Sorgente Group of America. Mainetti participated in increasing the Group's assets under management with the acquisition of the Fine Arts Building in Los Angeles in 2012 and the Clock Tower Building in Santa Monica in 2013. In 2017, Sorgente Group of America's became operational in Tribeca, and is the first sustainable restoration of an historical building of its kind in New York City. During construction in 2015, a documentary film titled Giglio on White began production as well, helmed by Mainetti and filmmaker Daniel Fickle to chronicle the story of 60 White's redevelopment and the struggles along the way to implement modern sustainability practices in code with the historically landmarked building's restoration. Giglio on White is currently in post-production, with no release date set. She received the America Award of the Italy-USA Foundation in 2017.
Other work
Mainetti is also a practicing rock climber and conceptual photographer, using and in continuation of her background as a sustainable developer. She commonly uses the term “History Buffer” as a means to describe her various interests in joining history with her goals of forging paths for an environmentally conscious future.
Conceptual photography
Mainetti’s personal work outside the development world continues in the expression of the dualities of nature & humanity, drawing heavily from her commitment to improving the way we live through environmental awareness, activism and sustainable practice. Her on-going conceptual photography series often explore common themes of rebirth in the human condition, likening the human body to Mother Earth and vice versa. In Spring 2017, an interactive photo/video exhibit titled The Rebirth showed at the Flatiron Building, in the exclusive . On display 24 hours a day through the front windows of the building, The Rebirth looped continuously for the duration of the exhibit, witnessed by hundreds of thousands of people on a weekly basis.
#ClimbingClimateChange
For Earth Day 2018, Sorgente Group of America projected life-sized imagery over the facade of the Flatiron Building at night, featuring motion graphics of oceans waves climbing the height of the building to represent where global sea level would affect New York City if the ice sheets of Greenland/Antarctica were to melt as a result of global warming. Mainetti incorporated climbing into the event, filming a short video of herself using safety gear to scale the entire height of the building. As originally conceptualized, climbing the outside of the Flatiron was not an option for this event, so she and her crew took the cameras inside, ascending 280 ft upward in the stairwell, finishing the symbolic final 5 ft outside the building, previewing her climb for the general public through video feeds in the window-front gallery of the building. With Mainetti at the top of the building about 220 ft of projected ocean waves, the event was meant to show real-time visuals of how global sea level could rise as much as 220 ft, nearly the full height of the Flatiron, which is 285 feet respectively.
