The importance of anticipating change
The only thing constant is change. For Antonella Carù, Full Professor at the Marketing Department and Dear for Development and Alumni Relations, her new position builds on the legacy of her mandates as Dean of the Graduate School and Dean of the Undergraduate School: "Already in my previous role I had a strong interaction with companies and alumni in particular", she says," who now have become my main point of reference. The alumni community is a fundamental resource of Bocconi and I will strive to strengthen the alma mater's relationship with them, and at the same time, strengthen the value of the community also in the minds of younger students and recent graduates". Her mandate also includes fundraising "which is essential for our university to be increasingly inclusive and attractive for deserving students regardless of their economic and social backgrounds, and remain tt the forefront of teaching and research".
Antonella Carù has been a Bocconian since her university days, "with the idea, at least at the beginning, of working in a company, something that soon faded away when I was offered a job by the University". She was School Dean for ten years, a long period of time over which she saw the University change and grow. A challenging and beautiful period, always characterized by strong team spirit, which emerged in particular during the hardest period of the pandemic, when we had to take momentous decisions, always trying to do our best in moments of great uncertainty and concern".
Returning to the theme of change, Professor Carù considers that Bocconi made a major qualitative leap with the disciplinary expansion towards political science and data science. "In recent years, we have launched five new graduate programs in areas that are beyond the usual scope of Bocconi," says Carù. "This means a great enrichment for us and to accept the challenge posed by the future. It also demonstrates that our University is capable of looking at the evolution of societal and employment trends and not be displaced by them. Indeed, that Bocconi is capable of anticipating socio-economic changes".