My Business Partner Is a Nobel Prizewinner

“In meetings, I am often the only woman at the table. Do you know what I do? I wear really colorful clothes, jackets with very high collars, and I always speak first, making it clear from the outset that I am decisive and strong, and that I bring skills and substance to the table.” Born in Udine, Silvia Console Battilana now lives in Palo Alto, California. Here she is the CEO of a multi-billion-dollar auction company, Auctionomics, which she co-owns, 50-50, with her partner, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Milgrom. 

To understand how Console Battilana came to run billion-dollar auctions in the US, we need to go back in time. As she tells us: “My mother always says that by the time I was seven, I already knew what I wanted. I had written an essay with the telling title ‘Money and Me.’ In it, I said that I wanted to be an entrepreneur and have my own career.” 

The step she took to achieve this goal was to study. Console Battilana enrolled at Bocconi University and graduated in Economics in 2002 with a thesis on Game Theory. Her mentor, Professor Guido Tabellini, urged her to apply for a scholarship to do a PhD at three top American universities: Stanford, MIT, and Harvard. “I won a place at MIT and at Stanford, and I chose the latter. At the awards ceremony, Mario Draghi personally handed me the scholarship. Years later, I met him and thanked him for the opportunity that changed 
my life.” 

While working on her PhD at Stanford, Console Battilana launched two start-ups. The first was designed to help students with their law school entrance exams and the second to facilitate networking between start-ups and investors. “After that, I went back to Italy and taught at Bocconi for a short time, but I missed Silicon Valley and the dynamic environment of Stanford, where everyone has ideas, everyone keeps moving,” she says. Back in Palo Alto, Paul Milgrom invited her to the Coupa Café, a famous meeting place for the Silicon Valley tech world. 

“During the 2008 crisis, the Treasury Department called Paul to figure out how to sell trillions in mortgage-backed securities at auction, and that’s what prompted him to ask me to become his partner: I understood start–ups, and he had come up with a new model for running auctions. I had my doubts, because I would mean leaving my start–ups, but within 24 hours, I decided: I took the plunge.” And she couldn’t have made a better choice. In no time at all, the company has grown and now employs around forty people, professionals capable of managing record-breaking auctions such as the 5G Incentive Auction, which raised $19 billion. 

An achievement that is also the result of a focus on teamwork. “We recruit, of course, but we take good care of our people. Sharks won’t survive here. We look for talent, but everyone has to have what they need to do their best work, regardless of gender.” So the company pays for babysitters at night for people with young children, and organizes team-building events. “From heli-skiing trips to entire castles with actors for team games in Tuscany,” she adds. The idea is that what helps multiply projects, ideas and sales is a team where diversity is an added value and where people are happy. 

“To young people I say: get involved and always be aware of what you can do.”