“Why Not?” Is Cristina’s Real Driving Force

There is an aspirational gap that creeps in, spontaneously, between female and male students. At school and university, girls and young women are often very good at STEM subjects, but then they do not often undertake careers that make use of these aptitudes. It also frequently happens that after middle school there is an implicit kind of social and family conditioning that makes girls study humanities rather than science in high school. “Knowing that there are many established female scientists, getting used to inclusive language that is also and first of all feminine from an early age, and having as many male teachers as female teachers are all elements that teach girls not to set limits for themselves.” 

This comes from a woman who does not fit the bill of the aggressive executive, but who, on the contrary, has found herself in her current role fueled by curiosity and driven more than anything by the desire to take on new challenges. Cristina Pozzi is Co-Founder and CEO of Edulia, the ed-tech hub of the Italian encyclopedia Treccani. “I have always learned and continue to learn by having fun. But since I made training my main activity, I have better understood the importance of some concrete details for a more inclusive society,” says Ms Pozzi, explaining the spirit in which Edulia was born. The company's goal was – especially at the start when it was still called Impactscool and was not part of Treccani – to bring technology, change and innovation closer to young people and adults, especially women and girls.

Pozzi arrived at her current position through a long and varied path in which the only constant was the question: Why not? "I have gone through many changes in my professional life but tried to never lose the initial energy. Faced with a job opportunity, every time I asked myself ‘why shouldn’t I do it?’ This does not mean meandering into the dark, on the contrary it requires constant personal study," the manager continues. After her first degree, she completed a second Bachelor in philosophy and various courses on new technologies and the AI future. "But I have never set limits for myself and this is the advice I want to give today's women students." For example, Pozzi founded the startup Wish Days, specialized in prepaid services such as gift cards and gift boxes under the Emozione3 brand, following her partner Andrea Dusi, subsequently at her side in the launch of Edulia.

Confirming her genuinely curious approach to learning, Pozzi chose her university degree being undecided between completely different specializations: philosophy, chemistry or economics. “I liked everything, I was interested in everything. I chose economics thinking about the opportunities that would come from it.” Ironically, however, for her first job she was hired by a company that usually had teams made up of engineers and philosophers. “How so? I wondered. The reason I didn’t study philosophy was precisely to have more job opportunities! In the end, I was the first person coming from Bocconi hired by that company. Was it a contradiction?” recalls the entrepreneur who also writes books and hosts podcasts. “I wouldn’t say so. It’s just that Bocconi taught me how to think. And also to write better thanks to a course held by journalist Beppe Severgnini.”

Ms Pozzi is part of the Young Global Leaders program of the World Economic Forum. “What did I learn there? That there may be women managers that you admire a lot, with a professional experience that you consider incredible but, in the end, many of them have or have had the same integration and career problems as the rest of us. Today there are numerous online opportunities to build community and there is no need to prove anything. On the contrary, these are opportunities for not finding yourself alone in front of mounting challenges.”