Elisabetta and Creating Value for Women
“I admit it: I didn’t like business at all. When I enrolled at Bocconi, I chose the DES program, the degree in Economic and Social Sciences, because I was convinced that there would be a lot of social sciences and not much economics. That wasn’t the case, it was actually a degree in mathematics and statistics, but I discovered that quantitative subjects could be very exciting and that I could do well in those, too.”
Today, data analysis and familiarity with numbers are part of the daily routine of Elisabetta Frontini, Global Head of Portfolio at the private equity firm Permira, after years of experience in developing brands in the consumer and fashion sectors. “After graduating, I started working in consulting at McKinsey and stayed there for 10 years, almost a record, becoming one of the very few female Partners,” says the top executive with a smile.
“At that point, my career in consulting was becoming a bit repetitive, more about relationships than real business and my learning curve was decreasing. But I still wanted to learn a lot and, since in the meantime I had earned an MBA from Stanford that had intrigued me about the dynamics of private equity, I looked in that direction. When the call from the Ferrero family came, I didn’t think twice and moved to Alba.” Working closely with top management, Frontini began mapping out possible acquisitions and setting up the program of M&As and brand expansion on a global scale that continues to this day.
“After the sudden death of Pietro Ferrero and the company being moved to Luxembourg, I decided it was time to change and went to London, to work at Permira, which at the time had a very small team (only 3 people) dedicated to value creation of the companies in the portfolio, focusing only on problematic situations. Over the years we have grown a lot and have built a team of 26 people who deal with all aspects of value creation, from due diligence to market exit.”
In addition to the desire to learn and career goals, the manager’s choices over her professional career have always been guided by attention to the quality of people that work with her. “Even more so because, both in consulting and in the world of finance, I often found myself being the only woman on the team,” Frontini underlines. “A few decades later, however, it seems to me that the situation has now changed from this point of view. When I was starting out, I realized I didn’t have any real role models to look up to: the few women executives were modeled after their male counterparts, proposing the ideal of a manly woman that didn’t appeal to me at all. Today, on my team alone, 60% are women who have been chosen for their analytical skills, but also because they are better at managing relationships, a fundamental aspect when you are a shareholder who must, for example, convince the management of a company to follow you.” In this context, managing “time off” and leaving space for family commitments and affections becomes more strategic than ever for a team leader.
“Offering a model is not enough, we need to create a favorable environment for this dual commitment. First of all, in the company, thinking in the long term and also relativizing any breaks, such as maternity leaves, in the perspective of an entire career. Then in society, developing the awareness that if a woman gives up work to devote herself to her family, either she does it out of conviction or otherwise it is a form of diseconomy that penalizes everyone. And of course there also needs to be work done inside the family, where tasks must be planned and divided 50:50 very clearly, methodically, otherwise in the long run the burden becomes naturally skewed towards the woman. I believe that for all children it is better to have two equally present parents rather than a ghost father next to a present mother always breathing down their necks."
