portraits of success 2010

Portraits of Success 2010

International, creative, innovators: Bocconians at work

Contents* Vikram Has a Full Plate of Ideas 3 by Tomaso Eridani An MBA Student’s Blog 5 by Tomaso Eridani A Visiting Professor Jogging Down the Naviglio 7 by Fabio Todesco Thanos, a Serial Entrepreneur and Professor 9 by Fabio Todesco Giancarlo, a Serial Volcano at the EMIT 11 by Fabio Todesco Texting for Serena 13 by Tomaso Eridani Wounded Chile by Edoardo Moruzzi 15 by Davide Ripamonti 24 Hours with Tanja, Massimiliano and Alberto 17 by Fabio Todesco Two Bocconians Develop the Capello Index 19 by Fabio Todesco ______________________________________ * Portraits of Success is a selection of articles previously published in the Bocconi Newsletter. Articles are available on the web on ViaSarfatti25.eu, the Bocconi online newsmagazine, at the following address: www.viasarfatti25.eu. Translations by Office of International Communication.

Aldo and Riccardo, Representing Bocconi at the National University Tennis Championships 21 by Davide Ripamonti A Bocconi “Government” in Vancouver 23 by Tomaso Eridani A Golden Apple at Bocconi 25 by Susanna Della Vedova Fabio, a Legal Studies Graduate Backstage at La Scala 27 by Fabio Todesco Andrea and Barbara in Bangladesh with an IDEA 29 by Andrea Celauro Elena’s Decisions 31 by Davide Ripamonti Cuocolo: On the Web with Il Ricostituente 33 by Davide Ripamonti My Africa 35 by Tomaso Eridani

People 2010

People

3

Vikram Has a Full Plate of Ideas by Tomaso Eridani

A Bocconi student, Vikram Kandula has developed and marketed a line of ecological dishware, based on a local Indian tradition that uses fallen leaves. He predicts product sales of 1.5 million in 2010

Creating a profitable business with a good product that is produced sustainably and used responsibly. With these good intentions, Vikram Kandula, a 27-year old Bocconi student from India, founded his own business, Hampi Products. The company holds dear to a practice held in rural Indian, and produces disposable dishware for catering which sport a stylish design and a very low environmental impact. After graduating in engineering in Delhi, Vikram already showed the first signs of an entrepreneurial spirit at 24 when he opened his own business in clothing manufacturing company. The business was going well, but Vikram understood that he needed to learn some more skills in order to better develop his ideas. “I needed to learn more about business and I knew Bocconi had a good reputation for teaching a wide array of management skills,” explains Vikram. “And I also liked the idea of living in Italy for a few years and getting to know the culture.” But while he was thinking about making a landing at Bocconi, Vikram already had his next initiative in mind. A light bulb went on when he went to a wedding in a rural part of India with a Dutch friend, Frederic Sanders, whom he had met in Mumbai while Sanders was doing an internship in the Sustainability Department at ABN AMRO. The two friends were struck by the disposable plates used for the wedding feast of over 1,000 guests. “They used plates made from the leaves of a local palm tree. The leaves fall naturally all year long and the plates are made by local producers without chemical or toxic products – so production is sustainable and responsible,” says Vikram. “They are perfectly ecological and biodegradable. These are all factors which today’s market values. The only thing left to do was to refine the plates’ design and think about how to produce them on a larger scale.”

People

4

Vikram and Frederic went to work, in collaboration with the local producers, and after a few months they had put together and tweaked a line of products and were ready to begin exporting. Summer was approaching and they decided to try to sell their product to seaside clubs in Bloemendall on the Dutch coast. They received good feedback, with the fifth club owner they spoke to immediately ordering 5,000, and the business took off. “Frederic has an aesthetic eye and is good with emotions, while I have a good business sense and am good with costs. We argue a lot, but there’s a good balance between our skills,” says Vikram. Meanwhile, with a Merit Award under his belt (the Bocconi scholarship for international students assigned on the basis of academic merit), in September Vikram arrived in Milan to begin work on his Master of Science in International Management. The hard work in class is intense for someone like Vikram who continues to work on his ecological dishware project. A Dutch designer is broadening the range and increasing the number of producers in India who, continuing to use entirely handmade practices, are being trained with new technologies and processes. With Frederic working full time and Vikram working one week a month, the pair was able to sign agreements with several distributors in France for the catering industry and make contacts with other distributors in Italy. Estimates for sales in 2010? 1.5 million items. It’s a commitment that will require a factory to be built in southern India to keep up with production of enough plates to cover requests. “Pursuing this business alongside my studies is a big job, but having my own business has always been a dream of mine,” explains Vikram. “And everything I’m learning in the classroom, marketing for example, can be applied right away. Professors like Markus Venzin and Robert Grant have helped me immensely in their advising.”

From Bocconi Newsletter no. 81/2010

People

5

An MBA Student’s Blog by Tomaso Eridani

Seda Saracer keeps an animated online diary on the Financial Times website of her experience at SDA Bocconi. She and the other international bloggers at FT provide an insider’s view that rounds out official information about MBA progams in various countries.

Born in Istanbul in 1984, Seda graduated with a degree in International Commerce and then worked in marketing at a multinational company in the varnish sector for three years. During that period, she became aware of the need for a turning point in her career path. “I chose an MBA because at university I learned simply through reading books, but then I wanted to learn new business skills along with other people who had work experience, who I could exchange ideas with and learn from as well,” explains Seda. “And I chose SDA because it has a great reputation and it offers a specialization in marketing that interested me.” Just before the program began in October, the proposal to write a blog on the website of the Financial Times came to her through SDA. Seda’s outgoing and curious personality encouraged her to accept the proposal and so she found herself with eleven other bloggers, including a student from Kenyan who studies at INSEAD, an Indian student in Chicago and an American at Cambridge. “I was familiar with Facebook and Twitter but I didn’t think of myself as a potential blogger. But I was curious about the proposal and now I’m really into it!” says Seda. “I started with the goal of offering a real view of what it means to complete an MBA. Often, in fact, only official information about MBAs can be found, while what I want to do is to describe what really goes on behind the scenes, personalizing my story as much as possible.” In her various posts (an average of two per week) Seda has in fact talked about the intensity of the program, the importance of networking, and job prospects at the end of the program, but also about the recreational moments among students such as parties and soccer tournaments.

People

6

“At the beginning it was a big effort, partly because I tried to plan my posts. Now I can be more spontaneous when I write, it comes easier and its almost a relaxing break from the frenzy of the program,” says Seda. Between the program, the blog and clubs (Seda is a member of both the MBA SDA’s Marketing Club and the Women in Business Club), Seda’s commitments keep her from spending time on her greatest passion, oil painting. So, at least for now, her dream of painting the Duomo of Milan will have to wait.


People

7

A Visiting Professor Jogging Down the Naviglio by Fabio Todesco

Last semester Tomer Broude held the first compulsory course in English in Law at Bocconi and ran the Venice marathon. His training was along Milan’s canals.

Milan for teaching, Venice for running. Thanks to Tomer Broude, 40, a Visiting Professor from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, last semester students in the second year of Law at Bocconi participated in the first compulsory class held entirely in English: a course in International Law. Broude took advantage of his time away from home to train along the Naviglio Grande and participated in one of the most difficult Italian marathons, held in Venice, on 25 October. One of the subjects Broude is most interested in is the WTO (the World Trade Organization), where Giorgio Sacerdoti, Full Professor in International Law at Bocconi, served as European justice for eight years, until November 2009. That’s why it was natural for Broude to think about Bocconi for the last semester of his year and a half sabbatical leave, part of which was spent at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. “At first the students seemed a little intimidated, maybe because of the new experience of having to interact in English, or maybe because they were used to classes that are more traditional than mine,” explains Broude, thinking about his experience in Milan. “After awhile, however, they loosened up and, thanks in part to their excellent English skills, they proved to be very good students. They were also very competitive, which is certainly positive on one hand, but which also poses the risk losing sight of the real goal of study, which is not a grade but knowledge.” The experience was especially interesting for the professor and students when a Moot court, a simulation of a trail in front of an international court and based on a hypothetical case, was held during class. According to Broude, a marathon can be an antidote to short-term planning. “Both in training, which has to follow a schedule, and in running, where you have to follow predetermined rhythms, marathons have only long-term goals.”

People

8

Broude started running again a few years ago after a long break. “I started running when I was a kid and during my military service,” he says, “and for me it became a lifestyle, something that your body starts to need, and that helps you stay in shape and stay healthy. A marathon, with its 42.195 kilometers, however, was a non-professional challenge, which I wanted to take on after awhile. I chose the one in Venice because I thought it would be amazing, so I started training in Toronto, Canada and I didn’t stop even when I moved to the United States and Finland.” Over the semester, Broude ran two half-marathons in Monza and Sanremo, and he discovered a running world that was different from the one he experienced in Israel or the United States. “In Italy,” he says, “I saw lots of groups with their social uniforms and people who would run in groups, while running abroad is much more of an individual sport.” The opposite is true, however, for university life. “In the United States and Israel, structured activities that involve the entire faculty of an academic subject are more frequent, and can act as social gatherings.”


People

9

Thanos, a Serial Entrepreneur and Professor by Fabio Todesco

Papadimitriou, a SDA faculty member of Operations and Technology Management, has twenty years’ entrepreneurial experience in radio, market research, web semantics and music.

To interact with the top international managers who participate in SEP, the Senior Executive program at SDA Bocconi, which he coordinates, “you need to have company experience,” says Thanos Papadimitriou, 39-year old Athens native and SDA faculty member in Operations Technology and Management. And he has plenty of experience: Conversation Starter, a Harvard Business School blog, defines him as a “serial entrepreneur” at the bottom of his post Are you the bottleneck in your organization? “I was lucky to among the first in Greece to get to know the world of computers and electronics,” he says. At 17 he opened a free radio with a few friends, at a time when only the state radio stations were legal. “Young Greeks were following the Italian example from a few years earlier,” explains Thanos, “and for a period of time, our radio had the most listeners in Athens.” The radio station didn’t accept advertising and the initiative never became a business, “but lots of my partners stayed in that sector and are now some of the most popular DJs in Greece.” Papadimitriou left Europe right after to study computer science at MIT and UCLA. His first job was consulting for a spin-off of MIT, Cambridge Technology Partners (CTP). “I was there for four years, and I went from a company with 400 people to one with 5,000 people. It was a highly tumultuous moment: the United States had just gotten out of the crisis from the early ’90s, created by the end of the Cold War, and industries like aerospace were substituted by technology industries. From my point of view, since I had to bring IT systems to companies, I had to analyze processes in detail and the process-based approach turned out to be useful in many other phases in my professional life.” Papadimitriou left the CTP when he decided there was no more room for professional growth in the short term (“I was too young for the next step”) and he started a PhD in Management at UCLA. “But I missed my previous work, so I founded Alpha Detail with two friends, a market research company in the pharmaceutical sector which analyzes doctors’ behavior. We started with a PowerPoint presentation, and thanks to that we raised

People

10

one million dollars from our former employers and we opened in February 2001.” When things seemed to be starting well, with several projects and promising contacts for the start-up, the US economy was shaken by September 11 and everything stopped for a few months. “We weren’t able to pay our salaries in November and December,” says Papadimitriou, “but we bet on our future and it worked. After a short while, the company started invoicing 14 million dollars a year, but I had left all operative roles to finish my PhD.” An academic effect of his entrepreneurial experience was a paper accepted at the prestigious VLDB (Very Large Data Base) Conference in 2000. The statistical methodology developed for Alpha Detail is also at the base of another article, written with Valeria Belvedere and Alberto Grando, to be published soon on the International Journal of Production Research. At the end of the PhD in 2003, Thanos contacted two students at the University’s School of Engineering specializing in natural languages processes and computer science who had a great idea: to compete with Google with a semantic search engine, which is able to understand searches in depth and provide only truly relevant responses. “I was their advisor for the start of Infocious. But technical excellence is not enough. Google was so well-established by then that it couldn’t be ousted, so we modified the project and created Lingospot, a service aimed at anyone who manages information websites or group sites to increase the number of pages visited and advertising revenue.” Actually, thanks to semantic search engines, published text is interpreted and the most important words are automatically linked to other text on the site or the group of sites that deal with similar terms, while advertising based on keywords are analyzed and presented in an order that follows the effective relevance compared to the text. Papadimitriou came back to Europe in 2004 continuing a double academic – as a SDA professor at the Operations and Technology Management Unit at SDA Bocconi – and entrepreneurial track. “It’s true that here, I have to admit, starting a company is much more difficult, both due to a larger aversion to risk and due to the absence of an efficient venture capital market.” Establishing himself in Milan, where he teaches courses in Operations, Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship both at SDA and at the University, he founded mBryo along with two other people. It is a sort of incubator with offices in New York which helps develop entrepreneurial ideas and write good business plans, and he collaborates remotely, managing a delicious blog on entrepreneurship, Chefs Not Bakers. In Greece he is involved in M2C Media, a company that manages music transmissions and advertising messages in large distribution spaces, which reached a market share of 25%, along with InHouseMusic, a music production company that creates both advertising jingles and commercial tracks (Sandyman can be found on YouTube to get an idea of the genre). “You can’t escape your past,” he says now, commenting on his return to radio even though today’s media has a more technologically advanced form.


People

11

Giancarlo, a Serial Volcano at the EMIT by Fabio Todesco

In their production phases, his ideas revolve around social networking and smartphones. He began an internship in Germany to study from entrepreneurs and imported an interesting idea into Italy.

Giancarlo Garibaldi, a student in his second year of the EMIT, the Master of Science in Economics and Management of Innovation and Technology, may become a serial entrepreneur in the future. For now he is certainly a serial “volcano,” very active in spewing forth entrepreneurial ideas, some of which are already in the testing phase. The idea for Post-Here began at EMIT, within an existing initiative which required a business plan to be drafted and presented to a group of faculty and business angels. “Combining messaging and geo-localization, Post-Here aims to be an application for smartphones that allows users to exchange geographically-constrained messages,” explains the student, who came up with the idea with classmate Gabriele Rodriguez. “We can imagine that participants in a community may leave comments in front of shops, for example, or that someone may leave a colleague instructions on what to do once they get to a certain place.” With a Bachelor degree in Engineering of Automation, Giancarlo has always had entrepreneurial aspirations and, when looking for a Master of Science, he sought out a less technical MSc than Engineering. He chose EMIT after seeing a Bocconi recruitment presentation reserved for engineering students. Garibaldi had a good idea about the technical and entrepreneurial possibilities of Post-Here thanks to another project of his which is in a more developed phase. MatchMe, another smartphone application, aims to reconcile real life with social networks. “Participants in a community track their profile and the people they would like to meet,” says Garibaldi. “When two people with a compatible profile find each other in the range of a few meters, the application notices this and informs the two of the reciprocal proximity.” Unlike matchmaking sites, the match doesn’t look at just romantic characteristics, but all kinds of shared interests. Here, though they use different methods, the business should hold, as in the case of Post-Here, thanks to advertising revenue and sales of premium versions with advanced functions.

People

12

The idea of MatchMe began a few years ago when Garibaldi was still studying engineering, and it has already evolved. At the beginning, the match wasn’t communicated through smartphones but through “Abbraccialetti,” a brand name registered by the student which is a blend of the Italian words for hug and bracelet, and which were created for the application. “Then we realized two things: that starting physical production for the abbraccialetti would result in high production costs and that smartphones were beginning to become more established.” The “we” Garibaldi is referring to are the other three engineering students who collaborate with him and two advisors: a manager in the telephone sector and a specialist in market research. The student believes he’ll have a beta version for the first market tests by the summer. His ideas are not destined to remain just ideas. He has recently been working on his latest ambition in Germany. Through the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs network he contacted a German entrepreneur who is active in customizing several common objects in a company, with the aim of enhancing the brand value of the companies that use them. Garibaldi thus decided to do a 3-month curricular internship at the German company, utilizing Bocconi offices for the bureaucratic issues. “Over these coming months, I will be his assistant to see what an entrepreneur really does. If everything works out, I might be able to become an Italian reference, importing the business.”


People

13

Texting for Serena by Tomaso Eridani

A Bocconi student, Serena Cocciolo is a volunteer at Project for People, an organization which promotes text messaging to support microfinancing projects for women in India.

Serena Cocciolo wants you to text her, not for her but for the women in West Bengal who need funds to support their agricultural business or start a small entrepreneurial activity. A student at Bocconi in her first year of the Master of Science in Economic and Social Sciences, Serena is a volunteer at the association Project for People, which launched a text messaging campaign to raise funds for microfinancing projects to help women in the poor rural area south of Kolkata. Serena dealt with microcredit projects firsthand last year, during her third year in the Bachelor in Economic and Social Sciences at Bocconi. As part of an internship program for the degree, she spent three months in India with Project for People, a non-profit organization which has been sponsoring cooperative and development projects to promote self-sustainability in local populations in India, Benin and Brazil since 1993. “My goal for after university is to work in the field of cooperatives and development, and in particular in the microcredit sector. I chose this internship because it gives me the chance to get experience directly in the field,” explains Serena. In January 2009 she left for India and stayed in Kolkata for three months, traveling to villages within a 100km radius from the city. Serena observed current projects and worked on accounting expenses, loan allocation process analysis and gathering data on operations. She also helped monitor the Women Peace Council project which aims to develop the role of several women as Judges of the Peace to resolve legal and family issues in the villages. “I saw how microcredit worked firsthand, along with the effort of involving women and most women’s happiness and satisfaction about what they were able to create,” says Serena. “It was a very educational experience. I learned a lot from the local staff, but also from the communities involved, observing their different worlds.”

People

14

After returning to Milan, Serena wanted to continue her collaboration so she started working at the microcredit group of the association, working mainly with the organization and coordination of internships in India for Bocconi students (about six per year) as well as with accounting and analysis of several microfinancing projects. Project for People recently promoted a campaign for text messaging to raise funds for microfinancing projects in India to allow “women and their families to get out of a state of poverty and redeem themselves from the role of marginalization,” as the association explains. Funds are intended to provide small loans which allow women to support or launch a business (both traditional handcrafts and agricultural) and allow their children to attend school (a mandatory requirement to take advantage of microcredit). Collected funds will also supply drinking water to the villages.


People

15

Wounded Chile by Edoardo Moruzzi by Davide Ripamonti

A law student and photographer, Edoardo was on vacation in the South American country for a relaxing visit with his brother when the devastating earthquake struck. He has produced a very touching photographic report, and he tells of his experience and his hopes for a career in photojournalism.

To transform your childhood passion into your career is everyone’s dream, but only a few can actually manage to do it. Among them is Edoardo Moruzzi, a 21 year-old from Bolzano, who is in his fourth year of the law program at Bocconi – and is an up and coming photographer. “I started when I was young, messing around with my mother’s cameras,” he recalls, “then I went up the line following the changing technology, from analogical reflex to the first digital cameras and now to the modern professional digital cameras.” Together with his partner and friend Giuseppe Balacco (a NABA graduate), Edoardo was just starting to get some recognition when his first big job came along: “In 2008 we were hired as the official photographers for the European canoe championships at the Idroscalo here in Milan, then other jobs came through, such as product catalogues. In the last few months, it has been insitutional videos for various companies.” Edoardo’s training is not the typical path through photography school and apprenticeship – he is largely self-taught. “I trained myself through practical experience and by reading a few basic books. I believe that formal education is important, but direct experience counts even more”. Together with talent, that is. Because a good photographer does more than making portraits of reality, but rather interprets reality from his own point of view. “It’s the photographer who decides what part of the observed reality he will transmit”, he explains, “combining creativity and the ability to deal with the unforeseen events that so often occur.” Tragic unforeseen events, sometimes, which can often turn into great opportunities to grow professionally and personally, as happened to Edoardo. “I had gone to visit my brother in Chile, where he is a diplomat at the Italian Embassy”, he says, “and our plan was to stay in Santiago for a week and then go to Easter Island, but

People

16

then I was involved in that terrible earthquake.” It was a tough experience for Edoardo, who accompanied his brother, helping with reflief work along with everyone at the Embassy. But it was also the chance to put together an extraordinary photographic report, “which will stay in my personal portfolio; I took pictures of the tragedy,the people, a country deeply wounded but which always kept faith in its institutions, as you could see from the Chilean flags that were flying eveywhere.” At only 21, the road to being a complete photographer is still a long one. In what aspects does Edoardo consider himself strong, and where is there room for improvement? “I’m pretty good at landscapes, buildings and studio shots. In a way, those in the studio are the most interesting because you have to build them from scratch, which emphasizes creativity. But I need to improve in portraits, I don’t think I have yet developed the ability to interact well enough with people”. In the future, he sees himself as a photoreporter, “because it’s a job that would allow me to combine my passion for photography with my love of exploration and research, and above all because it would allow me to do the photos I like best, the ones that tell a story.”


People

17

24 Hours with Tanja, Massimiliano and Alberto by Fabio Todesco

The Bocconi team who won the CaseIt business game in Vancouver talks about their big day. The key to victory was teamwork based on equal roles for all members of the group, with in-depth discussion of every point of strategy.

A team of Bocconi students recently won the most important international information technology business game in the world, CaseIt, held in Vancouver. In front of a panel of academics and managers in the sector, participants were asked to find a solution to an unpublished case and defend their decisions during the discussion that would follow. During the long weekend from 31 March to 3 April, Tanja Collavo (1st year in the MSc in International Management), Massimiliano Spalazzi (in his 2nd year of the same program) and Alberto Xodo (1st year in the MSc in Marketing Management), led by IT Systems Professor Gianluca Salviotti, beat out 15 other universities from all over the world to become the first European team to win since the competition began in 2004. “The 24 hours between 9am on 1 April and 9am on the next day were decisive hours,” said Tanja. “That was when we were forced to deliberate in our hotel room, using only computers and the material provided by the organization to discuss the case and prepare our presentation slides.” “We read the case, worked it out, put a strategy in place, then we reread it, worked it out in a different way, put another strategy in place and so on a few more times,” said Alberto, describing a seemingly chaotic process, but one which seems to have worked. “The idea,” explained Massimiliano, “was that no one in the team had a specialized and exclusive role. We actually discussed everything several times and each time we all participated, without leaving anything out.” The case wasn’t the most clear-cut, as it was divided into two parts. “On one hand,” explained Salviotti, the faculty tutor who accompanied the students on their trip to Canada, “they were asked whether to slow down or speed up the implementation of a project. On the other hand the issue was whether to introduce provisions which in the future would skirt all the drawbacks that had affected it.” The double timeline and the need to make both an operative decision and a strategic decision made it difficult for several teams.

People

18

“The three students were selected out of those who were taking the IT Systems course and who had shown interest in the event, which the International Relations Service had announced,” explained Salviotti. None of the three students, however, is specialized in IT, like most of the students from other universities. “Talking with the other participants,” said the three students, “we realized that many of them had an engineering background and knew sophisticated IT packets inside and out, so we got a little scared. But the case was definitely more focused on strategy, which gave us the advantage.” “The panel recognized the teamwork involved, the simplicity and elegance of the solutions and the decision and readiness with which they responded to objections,” said Salviotti. Despite the prestige of an event perfectly organized by students at Simon Fraser University (“the professionalism 22- and 23-year old students have shown is truly incredible,” the members of the Bocconi team said), Tanja, Massimiliano and Alberto wanted to participate so they could have an international business case game experience with students from around the world, they felt less pressured than most of the Canadian, Asian and US teams. “In some cases,” they explained, “you could see how stressed they were and a few teams even skipped the dinner with international speakers on the first day so they could keep training.” Language wasn’t a problem for the Italian team either. All three are in programs held in English and they all have international experience on their résumé. According to Alberto and Massimiliano: “During our presentation our only tactic was to let Tanja start and finish, since she speaks English the best.”


People

19

Two Bocconians Develop the Capello Index by Fabio Todesco

Francesco Bof and Sergio Venturini have worked out a system that objectively evaluates soccer player performance in real time. Presented in London, it will be tested at the World Cup in South Africa and extended to analyze league players in various countries.

The presentation of the Capello Index at the London Stock Exchange caused quite a stir in the British press. The idea that the coach of the English national side had developed an index to measure player performance – and wanted to test it during the World Cup in South Africa – was seen as a disturbance to the team. But it’s really an attempt to inject some scientific objectivity into the world of soccer, and important roles are being played by Francesco Bof, professor of sports management at SDA Bocconi, and by Sergio Venturini, who teaches quantitative methods at Università Bocconi and SDA Bocconi. “Our work began more than a year ago”, says Bof. Fabio Capello and Francesco Merighi, an entrepreneur in fantasy sports games and soccer social networking, had the idea of an index to measure objectively the performance of players on the field. The intention was to use it in fantasy football or as a support for coaches and managers considering roster changes. Bof was brought in because of the book Management del Calcio that he wrote with Fabrizio Montanari and Giacomo Silvestri in 2008. “The first time we met, Capello already had a table of criteria that reflected his conception of how to measure soccer performance”, explains Bof. “Over the months, this has become a list of over 500 possible events in a match that could affect a player’s evaluation.” The events involving a player during a match are worked through statistical algorithms to produce a grade similar to those published on the sports pages and useful to a professional audience. Each match updates the overall grade of a player, and the system works up dozens of statistics that show strengths, weaknesses and trends of play, over a season or a career. Bof, who became chief index developer of the company formed to manage the index, oversees its structure and content, as well as the resources to run it. He and Venturini develop the algorithms for crunching the numbers, and their goal is to make the data available two hours after the end of a match.

People

20

It is a remarkably large project, when one considers that to analyze a match live requires two technicians and a supervisor. Then consider that after testing it on the World Cup matches, the entrepreneurs look to be fully operational for league play in England, Italy and Spain. Germany and France are also very interested. “This system is a huge step forward in the objectivity of player evaluation”, states Bof. “Compared to sports journalism ratings, the subjective element is eliminated, as is consideration of the final score. It is the team index, which is the average of the individual indices, that correlates with the result of the match.” It is a perfectible system – already revised several times - that can be integrated with other evaluations. “For example”, Bof continues, “at this point we can’t evaluate movement without the ball. There are some exceptions, but it is just too difficult, even if we knew all the schemes run by the coaches. But we have run thousands of tests, and the system is very robust and innovative. It doesn’t rehash stats available elsewhere, and doesn’t substitute other analysts. It simply gives them the tools to raise the quality of their work, and to keep improving indefinitely.”


People

21

Aldo and Riccardo, Representing Bocconi at the National University Tennis Championships by Davide Ripamonti

Two top players, 19-year olds De Florio and Stiglich, represented the University at a leading tennis tournament held in Italy’s Molise region. Both enrolled in the Bachelor of Business Administration and Management at Bocconi, they have learned to balance athletics and academics.

They’re both the same age, 19, with the same ranking, 2.6 (though Riccardo has already earned enough points to move a step up), and the same study program, the Bachelor of Business Administration and Management. Aldo De Florio and Riccardo Stiglich are two athletes called to represent Bocconi at the National University Championships, which were held from 21 to 29 May in Campobasso, Molise. They’re both registered for the tennis tournament in the singles as well as the doubles, where they played together. They’re a lot alike, but they’re also very different from each other: “I started playing tennis when I was 6 or 7 years old,” says Aldo, originally from Rome and a former under 12, 14 and 16 regional champion in Lazio, “and when I was 10 years old I started participating in my first regional tournaments. Then, since I was doing well, I started playing more seriously, with my own coach and an athletic trainer. I did all this while continuing to focus on school.” Riccardo’s introduction to tennis was a little later, who, until he was 13, chose to play basketball in his hometown of Sondrio. “But then I wasn’t tall enough,” he jokes, “and so I decided to start playing tennis, where I realized that I could be pretty good.” To do so, however, he had to leave his hometown, “because I couldn’t grow anymore as a player there,” he explains, “so I came to Giussano where there was a great teacher, Argentine Marcelo Charpentier, a former professional player who was at the 100th place in the ATP rankings in the late ’90s.” It might be a little late to talk about going pro, but Aldo and Riccardo have different opinions about the topic. Aldo, who won the first edition of the Bocconi Tennis Tournament hands down in December (Riccardo didn’t participate), is the star on the Bocconi Sport Team at the CUS Milano Cup. He says, “I think I can get a little better, but this is my level more or less. Up until last year I trained every day, but now I only train 2 or 3 times a

People

22

week because I’d rather focus on my studies.” Tennis, one of the most meritocratic sports, isn’t forgiving after breaks, and players who train less lose places in the rankings because there are no team dynamics which could hide individual performances. For him, however, currently placed around 400th in the national rankings, competitive matches are continuing, “with tournaments and with the Serie B team National Championship, where I’m playing with Rome’s Circolo Antico team. It’s a hard championship with lots of traveling.” Riccardo Stiglich, who won the only previous competition between the two, “at a tournament in Gubbio, two years ago,” is taking his time and dedicating time to both his tennis and his academic careers. Because he started playing tennis relatively late, he still has time to fully explore his limits. “My life right now is very busy,” he says. “I have tennis, then classes and I study in the evenings. I’m trying to get as high as I can in the rankings” – he’s around 320th in Italy right now – “so I can get into the ATP rankings and then participate in tournaments with cash prizes. I still haven’t given up the idea that I can make a living off of tennis.” He’s also participating in the Serie B teams, with the Pro Patria Milano, but he’s aiming for Campobasso: “Looking at the board of registered teams, it looks like it’s going to be an interesting tournament,” they say, “and we hope we can get as far as possible and earn some important points for the rankings. Then there’s the doubles matches, even if we’ve never played together.” Last year another Bocconi player, Matteo Romanò was also in the championship. This year it’s Aldo and Riccardo’s turn to represent the university.


People

23

A Bocconi “Government” in Vancouver by Tomaso Eridani

Eight Bocconi students were part of the 9-member Italian delegation in the Canadian city for the 2010 G8/G20 Youth Summit, a forum for young leaders from around the world. The team debated world issues and presented their final document, which they may take back over the Atlantic.

A Bocconi majority government, with 8 members out of 9 from the University, in positions incluidng the head of state and the Minister of Economics, represented Italy in Vancouver at the G8/G20 summit for youths last month, taking part in lively debates with their peers from all over the world. Now in its 5th edition, the G8/G20 Youth Summit brings together university students from member countries, hosted in the same country as the official G8. Its objective is to give youths a voice that is heard on the most current global issues which make up the program for the leaders at the official summit. Candidates for the Italian delegation were chosen by Youth Engagement Promoters, one of the many international student organizations which help organize the event, while the nine final delegates were selected by a committee of three Italian university professors. Bocconi had good reason to be proud, since the majority of the final delegation, which was chosen out of hundreds of candidates, was such a large majority of Bocconi students. Stefano Greco, Claudia Fraccalvieri, Claudia Pereira da Conceiçao, Chiara Rivera, Francesco Fasiello, Giulia Oberti, Folco Cioni and Lucia Brambilla (along with another student from LUISS) were assigned various roles in the Italian government, from the head of state to various responsibilities for foreign affairs, development, etc. Each student was also assigned the task of preparing two position papers to present in Vancouver for discussion during the various panels. “The idea behind this summit is to give youths’ suggestions and our views regarding these global issues a voice and visibility,” explained Claudia Fraccalvieri, a student in her 2nd year in the Bachelor of International Economics, Management and Finance.

People

24

At the Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, five full days were given over to debates between the 130 students. Participants attended plenary sessions, and meetings between representatives of the individual areas to discuss various issues such as global governance, the fight against terrorism and food security. The final objective is to produce a final document, like at the official version, which includes the various proposals and purposes which emerge. “It was nice to be able to contribute to these important issues and come up with feasible proposals,” said Claudia Pereira da Conceiçao, originally from Brazil, enrolled in the 1st year of the Bachelor in Economics and Social Sciences. “I found it really interesting to see how these issues are dealt with differently around the world,” said Claudia Fraccalvieri. “In fact, outside the classroom we were all friends, but debates were very lively and animated! Then, in the evenings we went back to a fun and friendly atmosphere.” “It was also a great opportunity to socialize and network. There was a lot of truly intercultural contact,” said Stefano Greco, graduating in the Bachelor of Business Administration and Management, the “head of state” in the delegation. “In particular, it was nice to see how us European delegates were able to easily coordinate ourselves and work together, thanks in part to the EU Voice meeting we attended in Germany before leaving, where we laid out our shared European position. Since we’re all young, we hope that this is a good omen for the future of the European Union.” “Now we’re discussing how to continue this experience and the ideas that came out of it,” concluded Stefano. “The dream, which we’re trying to bring about, is to present our final document in Toronto at the end of June at the table of the real G20.”


People

25

A Golden Apple at Bocconi by Susanna Della Vedova

The Marisa Bellisario “mela d’oro”, recognizing women in business who contribute to the development of Italian society, was recently awarded to Bocconi graduate Barbara Torre. This was the first time the award was given to a cum laude graduate in Economics.

“I’m proud to be a Bocconi graduate!” These were the words Barbara Torre used to begin talking about herself and the award she had just received directly from the hands of Italian Ministers Tremonti and Sacconi on behalf of the Marisa Bellisario Foundation at Confindustria on Friday 18 June. The award, a golden apple with the awardee’s name engraved on it, was given to young graduates in Economics for the first time this year. For the past 22 years, the Foundation has recognized those female entrepreneurs, managers, professionals and bright businesswomen who contribute to the development of the country every day with their perseverance and commitment. At 24 years old, Barbara is a young woman, but she already has the determination, the will and the skills to contribute to the development of Italy as a nation. “I studied management at Bocconi and I graduated cum laude on 24 October of last year with a thesis on the topic ‘Corporate Governance in Italian Companies Listed on the Stock Exchange: CEO tenure, performance and sector effects.’ Along with my academic background, my thesis is what helped me win this award.” Her academic background is good enough to make even those with more experience jealous. Barbara has built up her résumé during her years at university by taking advantage of the “opportunities that Bocconi offers its students. It’s true,” says Barbara, “that determination, the desire to put yourself out there and to get things done are individual qualities, but Bocconi provides the tools to use them.” A Campus Abroad program in Australia, Exchanges in Barcelona and the United States and a permanent full-time position at Procter & Gamble in Geneva after graduation, where she works with financials for initiatives and competitive intelligence. The position is stimulating and in an international environment that allows her to travel to other parts of the world for business. She sees herself returning to Italy in the future, however, because

People

26

“I’m proud that I was awarded this prestigious recognition since I am the first Bocconi student to have received the award, and I would like to be a woman whose everyday commitment works to improve our country.”


People

27

Fabio, a Legal Studies Graduate Backstage at La Scala by Fabio Todesco

The youngest assistant director at the world-renowned Milanese opera house is 29-year-old Fabio Ceresa, a Bocconi legal studies graduate who changed career paths after graduation to begin working with music. He has also recently written several opera libretti.

In the complex of the former Ansaldo plant on Via Tortona in Milan, Rossini’s opera L’Occasione Fa il Ladro was being rehearsed, which will be performed at La Scala by the Academy’s students starting on 18 September. In the large rehearsal room, young singers dressed in casual attire alternate on stage, listen to advice from the director, Sonja Frisell, and ask another young man jumping up and down on stage with a large book in hand for repeated explanations. The large book is the director’s score, a volume which has the score printed only on the left-hand pages; the right-hand pages get filled in by the director with detailed instructions about the artists’ movements, expressions and behavior. The young man helping the La Scala director is Fabio Ceresa, born in 1981 and a Bocconi graduate in law. “These are the scene rehearsals,” he explains, “and they’re done to improve acting. Singing rehearsals happen at a different time.” Fabio is the youngest assistant director at La Scala, though he honed his professional choice relatively late, during his university studies at Bocconi. “I’ve always been passionate about this kind of music,” he says, “and when I was a kid in Rivolta d’Adda, I would buy opera music albums with my allowance. I played music and I sang, but only at an amateur level.” His interest was clear during his exam in private law with a musician like Giovanni Iudica, where the discussion turned towards opinions on legal events in opera storylines. “One of the conclusions we came to,” remembers Fabio with a smile, “is that the contract between Faust and Mephistopheles should be nullified because a soul is not an available good.” It was during his second year at university that Fabio decided to try out an artistic venture, while continuing his studies (“my parents insisted on it,” he says, “and now I am grateful to them”). The road that leads to La Scala

People

28

is full of rather random opportunities that must be seized quickly. “Through friends of friends,” he says, “I met a director who was staging an opera outside the city and, knowing about my interest, he asked if I wanted to help. Then someone else asked me to act as director for another small production and then a real director noticed me and offered me an internship at La Scala. That was three years ago and I’m still here.” For Fabio, a parallel vein to directing is writing music. “When I was younger, like a lot of other kids, I wrote poetry, but I paid a lot of attention to the structure and the metrics in particular rather than the content. Later I discovered that lots of musicians need people who know how to write text based on their metrics, or their music.” In this case too, you can see a chain of events that, since the first attempts he showed his friends, turned into writing a libretto that would act as the base for a musical composition contest that never happened. “But Daniele Zanettovich, a musician involved in the project, enjoyed the libretto and wanted to add music to it. So it was published.” His most recent success was winning the CIDIM, the Italian Music Committee, Kinderszenen for an opera for children: Fabio wrote the libretto for “Once upon a time there was... King Thunder!” based on Luigi Capuana’s fairy tale, and Daniela Terranova put music to it. “In the world of music, no one is ever required to have a university degree,” says Fabio, “but the fact that I finished my studies at Bocconi marks me as a reliable person right away and that’s important. And, a few years ago, when we needed to move a table to let the audience exit at the end of an opera, I had to ask one of the artists for help, someone who at first had told me he was an international singer. I told him that I had graduated from Bocconi and then we moved the table together, as equals.”


People

29

Andrea and Barbara in Bangladesh with an IDEA by Andrea Celauro

The organization is called IDEA Onlus and it’s an association that promotes child sponsorship and social assistance for families and communities in the South-East Asian country. And it was co-founded by two Bocconi employees along with two of their friends.

Inside Bocconi’s walls, Andrea Borghi and Barbara Alfieri work with advanced technologies used to run the most hidden but most vital aspects of the university. Outside its walls, they are faced with the worst poverty in Bangladesh. For Andrea, part of the Bocconi IT Services (ASIT) team and Barbara, who works at SDA Bocconi’s Information Technology Service, something that for many people is a normal move from virtual reality to the real world occurs for them as radically as possible: since 2007 they have dedicated their free time to IDEA Onlus (www.ideaonlus.org), an association they co-founded with two other friends to create and develop child sponsorship, social and healthcare assistance projects and projects promoting education in the South-East Asian country. IDEA Onlus is the latest step in social work that has brought Andrea to Bangladesh since 1997. That was the year in which he sponsored a little girl from Bangladesh through the non-profit organization Rishilpi Development Project. “I decided to see her in person to understand what it’s really like to live in that country,” says Borghi. It was an exposure to a world that was very far from his own and not just in terms of geography. “You can only fully understand the devestation of a population living in a slum in the forest if you see it in person.” It was a personal experience that began to consume him, though it didn’t turn into a concrete commitment right away. “I just started talking about child sponsorship at the office, more to tell people about my experience than as a way of promoting the Rishilpi mission. In the end, sponsorships at Bocconi reached a total of two hundred.” That was the moment in which Andrea’s view of the problems in Bangledesh started to change. In 2002 he returned to the country with Barbara, who had he met in ’97 and married in the following years. After they came back to Italy they decided to found a branch of Rishilpi in Italy, in Pinerolo. It was a business that lasted four years, until the couple decided to go even further. “We wanted to be able to do more. That was how IDEA Onlus was started.”

People

30

Founded in 2008, IDEA can operate all over the world and currently has an active projects in Mato Grosso, Brazil and three projects in Bangladesh. One of these, carried out in collaboration with the Bangladeshi non-profit organization Banchte Sheka and created as a child sponsorship project for social and healthcare assistance for children, has turned into an attempt to save an entire community. “We operate in Jogahati, a fishing village whose activities were completely upset when a section of a canal used by the community was sold to a private party. The inhabitants were allowed to fish only for their own survival and not for sales, a condition that devestated the village.” The work of Andrea, Barbara, Gabriele and Maria (the two friends who co-founded IDEA), along with the local non-profit organization, was used to build ten new houses for the poorest members of the community, “people who in some cases currently live under a rented outdoor canopy,” says Andrea. Since founding IDEA, Andrea and Barbara have sponsored an entire family (a woman who escaped from an abusive husband with her two daughters). He is adamant about the importance of not abusing the welfare state (“IDEA’s idea is to transform the village into a co-op that over time becomes the real engine of the community’s rebirth”) and about the mark that experiences like these leave on well-to-do Europe. “These are societies in which social and cultural differences do not allow adults and children to have relationships. These are communities in which an invalid is literally emarginated, in the sense that he or she will be picked up and thrown into a trash heap. These are places where children dream of a glass of clean water. By seeing this extreme poverty we should not simply re-evaluate what we do, we can also more fully understand how much these situations are often the result of rich countries speculating over poorer countries.”


People

31

Elena’s Decisions by Davide Ripamonti

This year’s Bocconi Run winner in the women’s category, Elena Vittone participates in running events at a national level and is a student in the Bachelor of Business Administration and Management. She is undecided whether she wants to keep running, currently juggling athletics and studies.

Though it deputed only two years ago, the Bocconi Run is already well-known for its high quality participants. One such participant is 19-year-old Elena Vittone, the winner of this year’s women’s competition, who is enrolled in her first year of the Bachelor of Business Administration and Management. She is a member of Runner Team RT 99 and trained with Andrea Monti (“I started in GS Chivassesi with president Claudio Clerici,” she says). Tall, thin and a little shy, Elena has the typical body type of a mid-distance runner, partly due to natural gifts but mostly because she trains hard and makes some sacrifices. She has been repaid with results: “This year I won the regional championship in Piedmont, in the Juniors category of cross-country running,” explains Elena, “and I placed fifth in the national finals in Pescara for the 5-mile track race.” These are excellent results, following her work in 2008, when she won third place in the 1500 and 3000 track races in Piedmont and eighth in the 3000 in the Youth category at the National finals in Rieti. These performances didn’t happen by chance: “When I was younger I played volleyball,” says Elena, who is from Chiasso, not far from Turin. “Then when I was 14 I started track and field, the only other sport other than swimming that you could play where I’m from.” It was a completely new world, where “there’s no team spirit, which reduces both disappoints and satisfactions. In track and field you’re alone, and happiness and pain is much more personal.” Her approach to track and field was positive from the start. She quickly tried out the various sports, then her first coach assigned her to mid-distance running, “because I didn’t have a very fast core speed, which is natural, but you can improve endurance with training.” For someone who is competitive and ambitious, training “means going out everyday, no matter what kind of weather,” even during the cold winters in her hometown.

People

32

She makes the effort voluntarily, especially when she was repaid with her first victories: “The wins and timing improvements generally come at the same time and, and, until you continue to improve you don’t feel tired from training, and everything you have to give up doesn’t bother you. When you stop winning, that’s when it’s time to stop.” Elena is at a crossroads right now, with her life radically changed in the past few months after moving to Milan to attend Bocconi. “I thought a lot about my decision to come to Bocconi, and my family and decided that I would have better career prospects after graduation if I came here. But I know,” she continues, “that moving here changed my training habits. Studying is hard work, and now I’m in a new group, even if my trainer has connections with Pro Patria Milano, one of the oldest groups in Italian track and field.” It’s a group that has included an Olympic, European and world champion like Alberto Cova. Whatever choice Elena makes about her future, though, the Bocconi Run may have already found its ruler for the next few years.


People

33

Cuocolo: On the Web with Il Ricostituente by Davide Ripamonti

The Bocconi Faculty member, who also works as a lawyer and consultant to local and European organizations, provides explanations of how the Italian Constitution is applied in his recently-launched blog. The aim is to make constitutional topics more comprehensible to readers.

Lorenzo Cuocolo, 35 years old, Associate Professor of Comparative Public Law at Università Bocconi, holds several positions and performs many activities: a lawyer in Genoa, his hometown, and Milan, consultant for the Genovese Port Authorities and consultant for the European Council for issues in environmental conservation. These are “roles in which my two psyches emerge,” he jokes, “the local one and the global one.” But Cuocolo is also interested in all forms of media, from printed material and TV to the web, the means of information that is considered the most popular among the students and professors he meets with on a daily basis in the classroom: “In 2007-2008 I collaborated as an editorialist for the daily newspaper Il Secolo XIX, then this year I participated in a TV program on the Genoa channel Primo Canale, Università Popolare. On the program I take five minutes to comment on constitutional issues which are connected to current events, all aimed at a wide audience.” The issue of making often difficult topics comprehensible to everyday readers and listeners with terms used by experts in the sector is very dear to Cuocolo. It has led him to open a blog with some colleagues, Il Ricostituente, published in Italian, which discusses current events that deal with the Constitution. “The starting point was that we would like to bring constitutional law to the average reader’s level, for anyone who would normally read editorials and political pages, but who would never read long technical articles that our legal professionals write in sector journals,” explains Cuocolo. “Our objective is both civic and social in a certain sense.” Il Ricostituente gathers contributions from Bocconi faculty members who have supported the site from the beginning, such as Edmondo Mostacci and Oreste Pollicino, “but I also talked with other people about the website, such as Maurizio Del Conte and Marco Ventoruzzo, who were very helpful and shared it with colleagues from other universities, providing the widest reach possible. I would even like to create a true editorial panel soon.”

People

34

“Articles in the Ricostituente need to be short, around 3,000 characters,” adds Cuocolo, who also acts as the blog’s coordinator. “They are not ideological, so they have a point of view and register that are suitable for the web. The Constitution is actually a common topic of interest, and people who don’t work in the sector don’t realize it, so our objective is to provide explanations about this area. Since it looks like we’re heading towards a period of debate on reforms,” continues Cuocolo, “I believe that there needs to be a third-party, neutral voice that aims to give explanations. This is the role of the Ricostituente.” The main audience of the Ricostituente, however, according to its creator, are students. “They often observe a clear separation between what is learned in the classroom and written in their large textbooks and what actually happens in reality. We try to bridge the gap of the separation between theory and practice.”


People

35

My Africa by Tomaso Eridani

MBA student Federico Pippo decided to complete his action learning project by doing an internship at the Dr. Ambrosoli Memorial Hospital in Kalongo, Uganda. He helped improve hospital management, improving his own skills, making new friends and experiencing a new culture along the way.

It was an unusual choice, but one that made a big impression. Many MBA students follow the crowd by doing an internship in finance or consulting, but Federico Pippo, twenty-nine years old, chose to spend the three-month internship for his MBA at the Dr. Ambrosoli Mermorial Hospital located in Kalango, in Northern Uganda. After about four years in the field of tax consulting, and becoming certified public accountant, Federico decided to begin his Master in Business Administration adventure, which he began at SDA in October of 2009, driven by the desire to expand his education and take on new professional paths. When the moment came to choose his “action learning” project (a period of 3 months during the program when students complete an internship or entrepreneurial, consultancy or research project), Federico was offered an internship in private equity. But he was curious about a proposal by SDA Dean Alberto Grando, who had mentioned the possibility of completing a field project at the Dr. Ambrosoli Memorial Hospital, with the objective of improving administrative and management procedures for the organization and supporting local personnel in applying these procedures. “Paola Galbiati, a Researcher in Corporate Finance at Bocconi who collaborated on the project also discussed this proposal. I was curious right away and I asked Paola if we could meet,” says Federico. “Five minutes was enough and I immediately felt a strong desire to take on this experience. And then the interviews with the Foundation made me feel even more strongly about it. It wasn’t an easy choice, but I felt like this was an opportunity I had to take at that time that would never happen again.” Valerian Fauvel, a student in the Master in Corporate Finance at SDA also joined the project, as part of the required internship for the program. So in early June Federico and Valerian left for Kalongo. The hospital, which is now a private, non-profit organization, was founded in 1957 by Father Giuseppe Ambrosoli, a surgeon and Comboni missionary who dedicated his life to treating the Uganda population. It is

People

36

located in Kalongo, Uganda, in the Acholi tribe territory, an extremely poor area, without many means of communication and lacking developed areas. Today the hospital provides healthcare assistance to around 50,000 people each year, almost half of which are children under 5 years old. It boasts 345 beds and 7 wards (including maternity, pediatric, malnutrition, TB and AIDS). In 1998, the Comboni Missionaries and Father Giuseppe Ambrosoli’s family established the Dr. Ambrosoli Memorial Hospital Foundation, which supports the hospital and the St. Mary’s Midwifery School in Kalongo. During their three months in the Uganda town, Federico and Valerian analyzed critical elements regarding the hospital’s administrative departments, where some accounting was still being done manually. They introduced a more modern and effective accounting management system which uses Excel. They also worked on supply room management by cleaning them out, getting rid of obsolete materials and introducing an IT system to manage supplies. Lastly, they worked on reorganizing the technical department which provides maintenance services to the hospital. This was all accompanied by daily training activities for local staff. “This was an extraordinary experience that will stay with me forever. I was impressed by the people there, who live through such difficult situations (Northern Uganda has been afflicted by a long civil war that started around two years ago), but they are always ready to give you a smile,” remembers Federico. “They were very friendly and grateful for the simple fact that we had decided to come there to help.” “I also played on the local soccer team, the Kalongo United. And after the last game I was moved when my teammates gave me a shirt with my name on it,” says Federico. “And I’ll never forget our Good-Bye Party organized by the students at the Midwifery School, who said good-bye with songs and dancing in our honor.” But this experience in the heart of Africa also enriched Federico considerably in a professional sense. “It certainly wasn’t easy to communicate the need to implement an efficient business management based on the application of correct economic sustainability principles in both the medium- and long-term to such a different environment, not only distant in terms of geography. Moreover, I had the opportunity to try out and improve several aspects of my ‘soft skills,’ which are nowadays fundamental professionally. Like knowing how to interact with people from a completely different culture, leadership skills, analysis and problem-solving.” “Lastly,” continues Federico, “being able to work knowing that you are contributing to helping others is priceless in terms of personal and professional satisfaction.” The MBA is now over and Federico is looking forward to the graduation ceremony that will take place in December. “In the meantime, I’m looking for opportunities in finance – as long as my desire to go back to Africa isn’t too strong. But if I do go back, I’ll definitely go back to Kalongo.” Federico still keeps in touch with the Foundation to continue what he and Valerian started in Kalongo.


Bocconi Newsletter takes a look at current topics in the fields of economics, management, law and more in order to highlight the importance of economic research and disseminate Bocconi’s vast store of cultural and academic knowledge. It also provides periodic updates on the many initiatives held at the University: • conventions, workshops and other meetings • institutional events • counselling and training at all scholastic levels • exhibitions, concerts and cultural events • presentaions and meetings at the Egea Bookshop in via Bocconi 8 • new publications from UBE and Egea The newsletter is published every two weeks. To receive the newsletter, fill out the subscription form at http://info.unibocconi.eu/newsletter

http://info.unibocconi.eu/newsletter�

portraits of success 2010

Education

vikram kandula

bocconi scholarship

bocconi newsletter

good business sense

good product

bocconi online newsmagazine

good reputation

good balance