If You Want to Grow, You Need to Work With the Right People

“The secret to a good career? Curiosity, and choosing to work with the right people and leaders who inspire you.” French school first, and then university, the notion of becoming a nuclear engineer and then the decision to enroll at Bocconi like her mother in the 1950s in Economic and Social Disciplines. Today Margherita Della Valle is CEO of the Vodafone Group, one of the few women in the world to head a telecommunications giant. 

As she was building her career, she talks about how open-mindedness and curiosity helped her find her way. “Coming out of university, I did not have a specific path in mind. I was mainly passionate about quantitative methods, mathematics and its applications. So, as a lover of variety, I always tried to seize every opportunity that came my way.” Della Valle went on to work at the university alongside Professor Fabrizio Onida, doing research and publishing studies. But she felt the need to enter the job market to see how she would measure up. She got experience in the research department of Montedison, where she worked for four years. Then she joined Omnitel (now Vodafone). 

“It was an innovative company, founded by professionals who wanted to revolutionize the telecommunications sector. It gave me a new window on the world (I was the first marketing person) and the opportunity to work with an international team: the energy was typical of start-ups, so you do things you don’t think are possible.” From there, she moved into finance, becoming Chief Financial Officer. And in January 2023, Della Valle became CEO of the Vodafone Group. 

She says: “Omnitel was a start-up hungry for talent, there was never any room for gender discrimination. There was so much to do and only competence counted. At Vodafone we continue to promote diversity, but not just gender diversity.” Now that she is CEO, she tries to be a leader who inspires and lives the company as her own in all her roles. “I have never seen the company as something outside of me. In English we talk about ownership, which means taking responsibility in a broad sense, not just in terms of your own skills. I think this is fundamental to being a leader here today. And then I say what I think, I listen to what others say, I admit my mistakes and I always try to learn. It’s a mission: my blood is Vodafone red,” she says with a smile.

“Becoming CEO changed me to some extent; I started looking ahead, always, and only thinking about how to do better tomorrow. It’s a really creative job. I tell women who want to make a career for themselves that there is still a lot of prejudice, but fortunately the world is changing. A year ago, of the four big TLC companies in Europe, all the CEOs were men. Today we have two men and two women. Diversity is an advantage in mixed teams. 
Ego counts for less and there’s an immense desire to make a positive impact on the world.”