Svolte: SDA Bocconi and Corriere Describe the Turning Points When Training Transforms Lives and Companies

Eleven stories featuring alumni, companies and faculty discussing how skills can be powerful engines of change. And the opportunity open to everyone to register for seven master classes that can ignite the spark of transformation.

In each of our lives, as well as in the lives of organizations, sooner or later there is a specific event which, when looking back, appears as a moment of change of pace, a real turning point. It is the moment when you have the courage to question your own certainties and feel the urge to change direction. When this happens, whether for individuals or companies, the new path often requires acquiring new and different skills. It is of little importance whether it is reskilling or upskilling: what these turning point stories have in common is that continuous learning is always at the heart of each of them.

SDA Bocconi School of Management and Corriere della Sera have decided to tell 11 of these stories in video format in the Svolte project. Purely personal stories or business cases, they show how management skills acquired can result in a radical change of perspective in one's life or business. Not stories of sliding doors, i.e. fortuitous events, but stories of experiences in which merit meets opportunity.

“SDA Bocconi was founded 50 years ago with the idea of representing innovation in management training, a place for the aggregation of the most leading-edge skills,” explains Giuseppe Soda, Dean of SDA Bocconi. “This has been its mission from the beginning, and today, through this project, we want the direct experiences from those who have been in our classrooms. They best of all can testify to the importance of investing in themselves and in human capital."

Svolte will be launched on Monday 17 January at 11am with a live event on Corriere TV and the newspaper's social channels, featuring SDA Dean, Giuseppe Soda, the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Corriere della Sera, Daniele Manca, and Matteo Del Fante, CEO and General Manager of Poste Italiane. The company, led by the Bocconi Alumnus of the Year 2021, is an exceptional case of transformation, as its CEO tells us. “The evolution of Poste,” he explains, “offers interesting ideas in my opinion for the country's digital transformation. Certainly complex, digital transformation is essential for a company like Poste Italiane, with its history, its size and its multiple businesses, in a global scenario in which digitalization in the economy and lifestyle is lightning-fast and irreversible. The pervasiveness of technology and the continuous evolution of the digital market have almost completely offset the difference between business projects and technology projects. This allowed us to understand that Poste Italiane, the most physical company in the country in terms of representation and employees, should also become a tech company."

The Svolte web series will continue for 11 weeks with the same number of stories describing transformations sparked in the SDA Bocconi classrooms. Like that of Isabella Castiglioni, who, as a researcher (and today Full Professor of Applied Physics at Bicocca University), launched her own startup, DeepTrace Technologies, which designs devices using algorithms and artificial intelligence that are available to doctors to make early diagnoses, for example of Alzheimer's disease. Or like the story of Alfredo Perna, who after the Military Academy of Modena and two missions in Afghanistan is now Site Leader in Spilamberto for Amazon's first robotic distribution center in Italy. From conductor to manager, then entrepreneur, is the double turning point for Andrea Gottfried, founder of Fuori Opera, a startup that aims to make opera popular again.

Svolte will also tell the stories of Lorenzo Albini, Paola Scapoli, Anna Juricic, Naomi Kohashi, Umberto Barbieri, as well as that of Javier Zanetti who, after hanging up his cleats, studied to become Vice President of Inter. Lastly, other stories will also be told by Giuseppe Addezio of Ferrero and Fabrizio Rutschmann of Prysmian, who thanks to ambitious company training projects are transforming their companies.

Eleven exemplary stories that represent an opportunity for everyone, individuals and companies, to reflect on their skills and how to strengthen them in anticipation of a period of change. “Investing in skills today is more than ever an indispensable need to navigate an increasingly complex world,” says Soda. “The pandemic has changed our priorities and accelerated trends that were already underway. For this reason, with Svolte, in addition to describing positive examples of transformation, we have decided to make several master classes available that can ignite the spark of transformation, open to everyone."

These success stories will also be collected and displayed on a digital wall, where you will be able to see all the videos and interact by posting comments or sharing your experience at SDA Bocconi.

A series of master classes will be produced on the main topics that are currently at the center of important transformations. Topics of the lectures will include sustainability, finance, ESG, big data for marketing decisions, governance, leadership, management of diversity and inclusion and the customer experience. They will be offered in hybrid format, with registration opening in February. Each session will be an opportunity to look at the frontiers and the most advanced studies on the issues that are shaping today's world and that are essential for managers.



SDA Bocconi School of Management