A Feminine Approach to Business Is More Circular
“Sometimes you have to have certain experiences just to understand that they’re not for you. It happened to me with investment banking.” In New York City, where she founded and manages a marketing and communication agency that has many famous luxury and fashion brands among its clients, this is how Laura Lanteri introduces the “sliding doors” story of her professional career. “During my years at DES, Bocconi’s program in economics, mathematics and social science, I took a lot of courses in the humanities, like hermeneutics, philosophy of science and art history. These were the subjects I was most passionate about even if, in the years immediately following graduation, it seemed that they would not be useful to get a job. Conversely, they were the ones that shaped my approach to reality and influenced the choices and changes I made in my life.”
In fact, after a second Master's degree at Harvard and a job at the World Bank in Washington, she veered towards sectors and positions closer to her creative sensibility, moving to work for some advertising agencies before becoming Head of Expansion at Oscar de la Renta, Head of Strategy at Gucci, then Head of Strategy and Marketing at Louis Vuitton. “The latter, in particular, was a role that combined analytical and quantitative functions but also supervision of the creative arm and for a while I was very happy with it. Over time, however, I began to feel constrained by such a rigid corporate position and developed the desire to want to do something on my own. I believe that chief executive roles in companies are still too much modeled on a male interpretation of the position. I could have gone on to work as a CEO, but I yearned for more flexibility. I wanted to manage work at my own pace, maybe not always from the office, without having to follow rigid and pre-set career paths. Today, having many companies founded and managed by women among my clients, I feel like saying that a female approach to business proceeds by a more circular evolution, while a male approach seems to follow a more linear path. I see women taking a broader view, which moves and expands across different levels, that is more engaging, more creative.”
The issue of flexibility and compatibility between professional commitments and family obligations was decisive in pushing Laura Lanteri to leave managerial roles to embark on a more entrepreneurial adventure. “I didn’t see myself raising two children while remaining in the typical environment of corporate offices,” she continues. “For me, for example, you work when you have to work, but then you take a break. However, it wasn’t an easy choice, also it takes an awareness that matures over time. Women in the younger generations seem to me to be more advanced on this score, more decisive in setting their goals. I have met some who, barely over 20 years of age, already knew they wanted to become CEO or have four children, that they wanted to get married or have a career abroad. They want to keep all options open and they are right to do so. I believe it is an element of progress to no longer accept the limits and objectives that others have traditionally always thought of for us as women, and instead ask ourselves what we really want, where our priorities lie. Furthermore, I don't know how much this is the case in Italy, but here in New York there is an increasing desire to create, even at work, environments that support these ambitions. When I was at Bocconi I didn't have all these certainties, I got there with time. But today I am happy to have built a role all my own, that allows me to nurture different skills: I have my consultancies, I teach, I’m filming a documentary. I have clear day-to-day objectives in mind, and I enjoy the satisfaction of achieving them little by little."
