Tell us a little about yourself and your business.
I have dedicated a consist part of my career to family business companies. Initially as manager and then as board member of the 5th generation of my family company. After those, I started my own consultancy firm.
What motivates you in your work and what do you find most fulfilling about being a business leader?
I believe that the key driver is to participate to a “larger project of continuity” managing the tradition and changing factors.
How did you develop your leadership skills and how would you define your leadership style?
“Thinking with hands”, that in other words could be learning by doing powered by wisdom and knowledge. My leadership style starts form observing and listening, in order to understand the environment, the situation and the possible scenarios. Only after understanding those elements is possible to act change, development and empowerment into organization.
Innovating is crucial in our very diverse industry. How do you stay ahead of trends and incorporate them into your global strategy?
Actually, my clients are operating in old economy with a relevant heritage background. Therefore, for some of them innovation means to respect tradition and merge it with new technologies. The successful factors are to involve and engage next generation into strategic process and to show senior and junior leaders a new destination to reach.
What do you consider to be the key component(s) of effective business operational development?
I consider that foresight and imagination are the two most important components that should drive an effective business result.
How do you approach identifying areas for improvement within a company's operations?
My first approach is to understand how the owner and their key managers think and take decisions. This means to try to identity their attitudes, their forma-mentis and their strategic planning schemes.
Where do you think the most promising investments should be focusing on and/or made on?
We are approaching a new potential business phase (5th and 6th industrial revolutions). The most relevant area of investing will be on human capital empowerment and development. If the organization does not capitalize consistently in this area, it will assume to face a long-term strategic risk.
What is or are your biggest career achievement(s)?
I consider that the biggest challenge is to adapt my cultural and cognitive mindset to understand the reality and the specific situation. I like to see every new project has a completely new release, restarting from zero.
Do you have examples where your leadership made a difference? If so, what were they?
In some projects I have worked the difference were to accept new diversity and variety of competences to introduce into organization in order to start the change curve. Sometimes the real problem was at leaders’ level and not in the overall company.
What’s the most important leadership lesson you’ve learned?
People often lie or omit important information. Therefore, you have to run more questions and analyses. Moreover, to show too much optimism could be a signal of lower challenging approach.
How did you identify and seize opportunities for advancement in your career?
I had a basic masterplan, and I was conscious about where I wanted to go. I like to think that this approach reduced the risk of take big wrong decisions. Actually, I took some wrong decisions that taught me some good lessons. Moreover, I had always been attracted by people more competent than me.
Have you achieved everything you wanted in your career so far?
Not yet, but I am already in the mature phase where is very important to giving back competence and knowledge.
How important is personal development to your success, and how do you approach it?
Personal development is constant and continue improvement that never end. My approach is continue studying and reading different topics that are enriching and adding different contributions. Best topics I think are philosophy and history.
How do you prioritise tasks when everything feels like a priority?
The main criteria should be prioritise with more impact have to be done first. That means that it is recommendable to focus first on main big problems to sort out.
What was the hardest decision you have taken as a leader?
Fire people and quit operations.
What steps do you take to measure your own performance?
Qualitative and quantitate result and risks reduction.
What does success mean for you as a business leader?
To execute your plan or, at least, to have put the organization on the right track.
Date Published: 29th August 2024