Bucking the Trend to Carve Your Own Path

“Having doors slammed in your face is not nice, but it can't stop you from making your decisions, even it means going against the grain. You can't always move forward and keep everything perfect, aligned and harmonious. And it's true: there comes a time when you're tempted to give up, but that temptation isn't necessarily stronger than you. In these cases, a sense of humor and a fair dose of realism do help,” says Natalia Bergamaschi, who works as partnership lead for Google, managing relations with US publishers in New York. 

The Bocconi alumna has lived in NYC for 13 years, where she built her family after graduating from Bocconi with a degree in Business Administration (CLEA) and a major in international marketing. She also earned a CEMS Master in International Business, and has work experience at rating agencies, as well as in the digital and telecommunications sectors, in marketing roles. "Then, however, I made my first important decision the bucked the trend. I stopped working for four years because I had two children. Many people told me that it was risky to leave the world of work at that stage, but I did. And, yes, going back to work was difficult. I had to reinvent myself professionally and move to the field of advertising sales, until I joined Google Italy. The curious thing is that it was my future boss – who was younger than me and didn’t have children – who did the job interview," Bergamaschi says. She argues that it is not necessary to put aside one's inclinations a priori; you can be daring with the right dose of realism. What was the second important unorthodox choice? “After four years at Google Italy, my husband had the opportunity to move to New York City for work. Together we decided to move overseas, with the children who still couldn’t speak a word of English,” replies the Bocconi alumna, who has two sisters (“both A+ students”) who are also married to two Bocconi alumni. “Moving to the US, trying to at least partially align everyone’s time and needs, meant for me to start over professionally once again, and accept a more junior position. It was a compromise but it allowed me to move forward,” says the executive who’s now a partner of Google US. It is a concrete example of how perfection should not necessarily be the goal before taking a step forward.

Ms Bergamaschi, who is 53, learned a lot as a female executive in the United States, because, when she was a young woman, it was normal for male colleagues to make comments about the physical appearance of women working with them. “I grew up in a family where my father always taught us that academic excellence would be our true instrument of freedom. However, this conception of female emancipation was not generally widespread in Italy in those years. In New York, on the other hand, I found a climate of greater freedom for women and I met women who coolly dressed as they wanted, without fear. There I understood that receiving unwanted compliments is not normal, but rather a problem. Today, the issue of how women dress at work has probably been partly solved but similar situations may exist in other areas,” warns Bergamaschi. “My solution was to discuss it with others. Not only with other women but also with men. The gender gap is everyone's problem.” Furthermore, in the opinion of the former Bocconi student, a data-centric approach can be useful when it comes to discrimination: data, information and research can help achieve greater awareness.

But did the student Bergamaschi also stand out in the university classroom? “Not at all. Or at least not initially. I remember a period in which I studied a lot and continued to get low grades. It was a very hard time. I wondered what I was doing wrong. While waiting to find the answer, I continued to take exams although it meant sometimes accepting low grades. In the end, the situation evolved even if I didn't realize it immediately when it happened.”