WOMEN IN BUSINESS: THE REPORT

Wednesday 13th. The conference has been organized together with the association “Women in Business”, and that allowed a huge enrichment of the topics touched during the experience. The title of this amazing initiative already explains a bit what It has been about : “Family & Governance: A Woman’s Challenge?”. The purpose of this event was in fact to analyze and understand two extremely interesting issues, respectively the main objects of the two associations, which are governance in family businesses and Board Diversity as regards the presence of Women in large family companies. In order to fruitfully catch the topics’ insights, It was our honour to host two brilliant women who gave us inspiring speech about their companies and themselves: Veronica Buzzi, from Buzzi Unicem and Cristina Scapparino from Neoceram SPA. The event was moderated by Professor Guido Corbetta, who teaches Strategic Management in Family Business in Bocconi. Veronica and Cristina were asked several different questions from Professor Corbetta, both about Family Business and Board Diversity, and they answered in a completely free and spontaneous way, which made the whole experience utterly catching.

After talking about technical aspects, the guests gave the public insights about their personal lives and experiences; that made their speech inspiring and even touching, when It came to families’ aspects and to the precious advices given to all the students who were present. One Example has been Veronica’s final statement, when she deliberately said “Do not stop searching. Do what you really want, go and ask always for the best: you hold your future”.

Another one comes from Cristina’s description of the common path she has with her uncle (involved in the business), when she said “We do share passion, we do share values, and values make the most, both in family and in business”.

After these speeches, a Q&A part took place, allowing anyone from the public to gain more insights by asking anything directly to the guests, who proofed to be very kind and committed to answer to all of us who posed a question. Bocconi Students for Family Business is extremely proud of the event’s success, and officially thanks Veronica Buzzi, Cristina Scapparino and Professor Guido Corbetta for their active and essential participation.

Furthermore, the association thanks “Women in Business” for the beautiful collaboration, which allowed the event to be such a triumph.