Chiara’s Many Careers
Perhaps we lost a great doctor, because medicine was Chiara Burberi's marked, and dreamed, path, as per family tradition. Then the imponderable happened, namely, she recounts, “a minor surgery during which I fainted. And so my father, very realistically, told me, 'Chiara, this is not your path, but you are good student, you will attend Bocconi.' I actually would have preferred architecture, to give space to my natural interest in art, which I then nurtured over the years in other ways, but in the end he won and I came to Bocconi, attracted by the idea of quickly becoming independent.” At Bocconi, Chiara Burberi immediately fitted in very well: “I felt like I was in a fancy high school, everything was organized, planned, simplified, you just had to follow the rhythm. Everything was new to me, you just had to be curious.” At Bocconi, Chiara attended Business Administration and, after graduation, went on to a PhD. Then, we are in the early 1990s, she begins the search for her first real job. Not an easy one. Even back then. “I was eager to learn, to know the reality of companies. Between investment banking and consulting, I chose consulting, and the best place for that was McKinsey. It was an incredible ‘school’, my real school, full of really bright people, where you learn how to use numbers, how to be concrete and effective, and where you can measure the impact of your work for the client. A place, by the way,” Burberi continues, “where ongoing staff training is a real priority . And where, periodically, you were evaluated and compared: the top employees grew, the others had to leave.” A perfect mechanism, not easy to replicate. And where Chiara Burberi remained for seven years. “But just consulting was no longer enough for me. I like to imagine the future, but then also create it. And so when the offer from Unicredit came, I accepted it with enthusiasm.”
It was an enticing assignment, albeit a tiring one because it meant a lot of travel and a lot of flights: “I was the retail manager of the foreign banks, six airline flights a week on average, in Eastern European countries, from Poland to Turkey. The goal was to export the Unicredit service model and product offerings, obviously adapting them to those unique realities. They were very high-growth markets. Every time I returned to a country, to a city, I found great changes. Every trip held surprises.” At Unicredit, Chiara Burberi stayed about ten years, in different roles, from Retail to Organization and finally Compliance, at key moments in the Group's development.
And then followed a series of other experiences, always driven by a desire to learn: again consulting, then management training, and independent director roles in listed and regulated companies, always in different sectors, and then an entrepreneurial experience. Redooc was “an innovative edutech platform focused on STEM subjects. School in Italy generally doesn’t adapt to individuality - it is students who have to adapt to the teachers, to their style, which can be a nice exercise if you do not have problems, if you are flexible - if on the other hand you have some difficulties, that is, talents that are not evident, school can become not a social elevator but a half prison, so much so that in Italy we have a very high number of boys and girls who drop out of school. This was the impetus that led me to found Redooc: to convince students that no one is born without maths ability. This was my ‘give back’ for the younger generation, especially for girls.” Redooc gained a lot of notoriety, but then in fact did not grow as Clare would have expected. A big disappointment because the experience as an entrepreneur is even more engaging; you get totally involved. “We liquidated the company in 2022 - I'm not saying it was like losing a child, but…..”
After that, Chiara became General Manager of the Mulino-Carocci publishing group, a position bringing together all her previous managerial experience from business to governance. The publishing group is also linked to the education sector, albeit at university level. “These are two very different markets. Il Mulino has always dealt with a wide range of higher-education subjects, from sociology to history to literary criticism, but not STEM subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry....” The publishing sector is traditionally among those where women are most represented. Is this the case at Mulino as well? “Certainly. But while at top management levels women are roughly 50 percent, in white-collar roles women far outnumber men. Another feature of the publishing industry is that most of those who work there have stayed almost always in the same publishing house. A nice value, but also a potential limitation because this may hold back innovation. The publishing market is extremely complex, but it has enormous potential, which can be deployed by importing and adapting best practices from other industries. A beautiful learning path for everyone.”
Chiara has now returned to consulting, as Senior Advisor in Simon Kucher's Italian office. "I was attracted by their top-level expertise on the revenue and growth side, unique in consulting." Once again, curiosity and a desire to learn prevailed. Chiara has just signed up to a writing course, mindful of the feedback she received from a journalist friend, "You talk better than you write." What's next? "I'm working on a new project, another wonderful opportunity. Stay tuned!"
