The Right Strategy? Adopt the Entrepreneurial Mindset
“I had a passion for politics and social issues. After high school, I knew I wanted to study these subjects and get a job that had an impact on society. So I chose economics in Milan, partly to escape from the province of Veneto.” Born in Northern Italy in the town of Schio, the daughter of a textile manager, Maria Pierdicchi has built her career in finance, serving as non-executive director in several listed groups, including Unicredit, Autogrill, and Luxottica. She was also Head of Southern Europe for Standard & Poor’s.
Her degree is in Political Economics from Bocconi University, but Pierdicchi more and more interested finance, so much so that she decided to stay at the university as a researcher with Professor Demattè, one of her mentors. She studied and taught at the university, focusing on financial markets and intermediaries. She tells us: “I loved teaching so much that I continued; it was great training for learning how to speak in public,” she adds. Then came the opportunity to go abroad thanks to her contacts at the Stern School of Business Administration in New York, where she did an MBA in finance in 1987, graduating with top honors. She says: “In the Big Apple, I discovered a sophisticated academic world and a much more demanding financial arena than I had encountered in Italy. Those were the roaring years of Wall Street.” But then came the crisis of 1987 and the dramatic surge in unemployment.
Back in Italy, it was difficult to return to academia, so Pierdicchi turned to financial services. After four years at Citibank as a senior analyst in corporate finance, she decided it was time for a change. So she joined Premafin, the holding company of the Ligresti family, as general manager. For six years, Pierdicchi was responsible for the strategic and financial control of the listed subsidiaries. “One of the leitmotifs of my career was change, knowing that that also meant taking risks. I have never regretted it because I’ve had the opportunity to learn about different sectors: from construction to insurance to highways,” she adds.
Her role at Premafin, where she worked on post-crisis debt restructuring, brought her closer to the financial markets. Then in 1999, she joined the newly privatized Borsa Italiana. Here she set up Nuovo Mercato, listing 50 companies and managing all promotional activities, talking to entrepreneurs but also to investors, issuers and intermediaries. “It was like working in a start-up today, in part because I had left a sure thing for a three-year contract, which was absolutely unheard of at the time.” Pierdicchi was then approached by Standard & Poor’s Italy and began working on developing rating services in the debt market. She took the helm as CEO in 2003 and spent the next 12 years in charge of Southern Europe. More recently, she has served on the boards of Luxottica, Autogrill, Good Banks, and Unicredit.
She also talks about helping to create Valore D, the association that promotes gender diversity in companies. “We are better off than when I started, the gender quota law has done a lot. But Italy is lagging behind the rest of Europe: too many excellent young women, exploited or poorly paid.” A useful strategy? “Adopt an entrepreneurial mentality; get to know and use new technologies; take risks without ever thinking that it’s either work or family,” she says.
