Louis Tallarini (1947) is a successful businessman, Chairman of Real Property Investors, Inc., a privately held national real estate development, consulting and finance firm. He is also actively involved in various philanthropic causes and charities. He is currently Chairman of the Italian Language Foundation Inc. and was President of the prestigious Columbus Citizens Foundation (CCF) in New York from 2006 to 2009, and President of the Columbus Weekend Celebration, including the Columbus Day Parade in New York City in 1999, 2000, and 2002-2016. He was presented with the Magna Grecia International Award in 2005 on the occasion of the Magna Grecia International Week, organized in New York by the International Association bearing the same name and chaired by President Nino Foti.

Tallarini was born in New Rochelle, New York, to a family of Italian descent that arrived in the United States in the early 1890s. His maternal grandfather and grandmother came from Lacedonia and Calitri respectively, two villages in the province of Avellino, and met in New Rochelle where Tallarini's mother was born in 1914.

Today, Louis Tallarini lives in Westchester, one of those small towns that have a large Italian community and, in Tallarini's words, undoubtedly an area with a strong Italian influence.

In September 2006, when he was presented with the Philip Mazzei Award in Bonito, a town near Avellino, Tallarini visited his hometowns, Lacedonia and Calitri, for the first time. There he managed to reunite with the part of his family that had remained back in Italy and, on the same occasion, he was also bestowed with the honorary citizenship of Lacedonia.

His father's family was originally from Bergamo, Piedmont and also emigrated to the United States around 1886. His grandfather's name was Ermenegildo Tallarini and he met and married Concetta Eremita, from Campobasso, in the church of San Giuseppe in New Rochelle. It was 1906, and it was one of the first marriages celebrated in the new church.

"We grew up at a time when the children of immigrants were Americanized because of a natural process of assimilation. In a nutshell, I think some of this assimilation was driven by World War II. We were not encouraged to learn or speak Italian in an educational environment. At least in my family we weren’t pushed to do this, perhaps because we already were an old generation. I think that having Italian roots, even in the time of assimilation, always influences the way you carry on with your life. All the Italian traditions are still alive in us all. Every Sunday, since I was a child, I used to go to visit my grandmothers. This went on forever, even when I had grown up and joined the army. We truly inherited the family tradition that identifies us with Italy. This is one of the greatest values that people have brought here from Italy. Few cultures have the same respect for family and the elderly."

In 1979, Tallarini became first a member and later president of the CCF, an organization of many prominent Italian Americans, born out of the organization of the first Columbus Day Parade in 1929, organized by Generoso Pope. He was a powerful Italian leader, who had emigrated from Benevento, he founded his newspaper Il Progresso and was responsible for thousands of scholarships not only to Italian American students, but to all students attending Catholic schools in New York. Today, the CCF, with the Zeffirelli, Elementary, High School, and College Scholarships, not only helps Italian/Americans get the tuition they might not otherwise get, but also contributes to the collective cultural identity of the younger generations of Italian Americans.

In this regard, Tallarini has always tackled, through an educational program, the problem of negative stereotypes about Italian culture and Italian Americans: he has fought against Hollywood and even against Robert De Niro. He garnered headlines when he turned down Mayor Bloomberg's offer to walk the Columbus Parade together with a couple of Sopranos actors.

In some respects, this incident was, according to Tallarini, a blessing, because the issue received the right amount of media attention.

In a 2007 interview Tallarini said:

"I would like to be remembered for someone who helped the movement re-educate Italian Americans about their culture."