No longer alone around that table
“I was born into working class family in Terni, Italy. My parents never treated me differently from my brother. My career is an example of social mobility made possible by a family who encouraged me, a quality education that culminated in a degree from Bocconi, an inclusive company that is a great school of leadership, and a husband who supported me.” Sara Scrittore is now Vice President and General Manager, Southern Europe Hub at Colgate-Palmolive. It’s a position she has built for herself through hard work and skill.
After graduating from high school,” she says, “I went to Milan thanks to a Soroptimist Award, and while I was there I took the Bocconi entrance exam. I took the test without knowing if my family would be able to pay the fees. But thanks to an ISU Scholarship and the Pensionato Bocconi dormitory, I was able to graduate.”
At university, she came into contact with a different world populated by students from a vast range of backgrounds. “There were the children of entrepreneurs and lawyers, but I remember being amazed that there were also so many young people who, like me, came from the ‘bottom’ and that social diversity was the norm at the university,” she adds.
After graduating in 1994, Scrittore wanted to work in the FMCG sector and joined Colgate, the company where she would build her entire career. As she tells us: “For the first three years I played two roles: one in customer service and the other in demand planning, a sales team where we did planning for the factory. In 1997, she was sent to sales, an environment almost entirely populated by men. “I was confused, I admit, but I took the plunge and it went well. In 1999, my sales territory was Lazio and Campania, where I had a mixed team, with salespeople close to retirement as well as very young people. Then I headed a key accounts team in Milan,” she adds. In 2000, she was offered a middle management position in customer marketing with a customer focus. “I liked it, but my story was destined to go in a different direction,” she explains.
In true maverick style, Scrittore began her international career in 2001. “For nine years I had been living with my husband, also a Bocconi graduate and journalist. At Colgate they offered me the chance to go abroad. My husband said, ‘OK, I’ll follow you, but not to Asia or Africa.’ We had a dinner with the global head of sales, who kept talking about Hong Kong,” she adds. The company gave Scrittore a week to decide, and invited her to visit the city. “[In Hong Kong], we realized it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and so we moved. We stayed there for four years, not knowing that our expat life had begun.” The life of nomads, connecting with different cultures and communities.
“On this amazing journey, the fact that we didn’t have children made it easier for us to make a change in our lives every three or four years.” So Scrittore went to Lisbon, Prague, New York, Singapore, Kansas, and back to Hong Kong. “It was the two of us, as a couple, and our relationship grew stronger with each new experience.” Only recently did she return to Rome, still working for Colgate, to head up Southern Europe. On the issue of gender: “It’s true that I was always the only woman or one of the few in any meeting, but that never stopped me. I never felt discriminated against or different, it was just me. And that attitude made a difference in the long run,” she concludes.
