Testimonials

MAMA not only sets you up with an exceptional start working in the Arts Sector, but it also provides you with an invaluable dive into Italian culture and enables you to meet incredible people from all around the world.

A lasting blend of superlative academia and courteous camaraderie in the outmost exquisite Italian context.

Field trips are always stimulating, where we have the opportunity to meet and talk with great names of the Italian cultural scene. During the conversation with Paolo Baratta, President of Biennale di Venezia, it was interesting to understand his vision of art’s social function and the role of the Venice Biennale in the contemporary art scene. Baratta pointed out that visitors should be treated as people and not customers. The exhibitions are about exchanges between the art and the visitor, and their unique experience, where every visitor has the chance to be motivated and inspired by them. Learning from different points of view, perspectives and institutions makes the MAMA at SDA Bocconi a more diverse and dynamic program. Going beyond school walls give us practical skills, expanding the knowledge we learn in the classroom.

Growing up as a dancer, the difficulties that institutions faced to maintain artistic integrity while being accessible to the public led me to a career in the arts; not as an artist, but as a someone that knows how to properly manage an organization. Wanting this career path led me to find the MAMA program; an immersive experience that gave me the tools to understand the day-to-day management of a cultural institution: financially, organizationally, and communicationally.
The issues which I once faced found solutions during the program, while others developed when discussing real life cases with professors and in meetings with numerous Italian cultural institutions.
Sharing this experience with a group of diverse people who enriched my background and managerial skills, definitely made MAMA a well-rounded program designed to make us innovate within the cultural sector.

Looking around at various masters in Cultural Management I was sure MAMA was the best choice for me. After my time at SDA Bocconi, I can say that I was right. Through the study of international cases, meetings with major institutions and professionals in the field and courses with top level professors, the MAMA program prepares its students to overcome the apparent contradiction between management and culture and to ensure the long-term sustainability of cultural institutions to maximize impact. MAMA alumni are critical thinkers with a full set of tools to develop the cultural institutions of the future.
Learning these tools, working in teams with amazing people from all over the world and applying theory constantly to real cases made the experience worthwhile. Combining this with private visits to the most spectacular Italian heritage and cultural sites made it unique.

Nowadays artistic and cultural institutions are facing many challenges and are constantly asked to adapt or reinvent themselves by implementing innovative and sustainable strategies to ensure their mission of promotion and conservation of heritage.
If you ever wonder what the cultural institutions of the future will be and you want to be a part of these changes, then the MAMA program is made for you.
More than a simple master, the MAMA is a deep immersion in cultural and artistic industries through a tailored program of courses given by top level professors and prominent cultural managers bringing their hands-on experiences.
MAMA will not only offer you the chance to learn managerial culture and expertise that can be applied in cultural institutions, but also give you the opportunity to put them into practice through an internship in one of the outstanding institutional partners of MAMA.

When I joined the MAMA program at SDA Bocconi, I knew that I was about to have access to the highest and most prestigious business education available in Italy and the only one able to compete on the international scene.
What I did not know was that I would become part of an inspired group of people - including the faculty, all the partners, guest speakers and my colleagues - all aligned and inspired by the same mission: enhancing the valorization of a great cultural heritage through the development of strong managerial competences and best practices.
I was lucky to bring that same dedication, professionalism and enthusiasm everyday to MAMA and in my future professional experiences.

If you are curious about how to run a museum or an opera house, if you care about cultural heritage and how to preserve it, if you go to a music festival and pay attention to every detail, MAMA is definitely the program for you!
After 6 years working as a consultant in cultural fields in a global PR firm, I decided to come to Milan to improve my managerial skills at SDA Bocconi.
The program consists of specialized courses that give you a holistic view over the trends and challenges that all arts institutions face these days. The professors bring real cases to discuss in class; the director is well connected with the most important art institutions in Italy, which opens doors for private visits and inside information.

After completing my studies in two completely different fields, marketing and cinema, I had to decide where I wanted to focus and which path to follow in my future career. A combination of both seemed to be the best way, in order not to leave either of my two passions behind. After searching for masters worldwide, I found MAMA. MAMA was definitely the only choice for me, with a unique combination of specialized courses, a professional faculty and the support of many international partners, which no other master in cultural management can offer. Studying Arts Management in one of the most prestigious business schools in the world, in a metropolitan, multicultural city such Milan is an amazing experience and a key for success.

Art industries differ in the way they function from traditional industries. The dynamics of the market for art products are very different. The laws that govern traditional industries cannot be applied. This makes it increasingly important to understand and manage in a way that is unique and adapted for them. The MAMA program helps us to understand this difference and equips us with tools that are specialized for art and cultural industries. The program helps us in developing and polishing the skills that are needed to manage the arts better and become efficient arts managers.

Vatican Museums, which stand under the shadow of the dome of Saint Peter’s, are one of the most important sites for the history of human civilization. They are namely the site in which the Catholic Church finds its identity.
I am very happy for the opportunity to collaborate with the SDA Bocconi MAMA program, which is innovative and important. The excellence of the culture and that of the faculty are joined together. What more can we expect?

Managing an institution that deals with the conservation and promotion of cultural and artistic heritage means being able to relate different types of knowledge and expertise with the goal of creating cultural value both for the audience and museum stakeholders.
The Master in Arts Management and Administration at SDA Bocconi provides the knowledge and builds the skills necessary to be able to face the continuing challenges we face everyday at the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia.

We are partners with the SDA Bocconi MAMA program to contribute our experiences conveying Italy not only in its historical, aesthetic and natural excellence, but also in the case of our FAI – Fondo Ambiente Italiano, as an example in management of cultural heritage that combines nonprofit strategy with international best practices.

Thanks to FAI, MAMA students will experience memorable action learning paths.

Filarmonica della Scala is not only one of the most prestigious arts institutions in the world, it is also a private organization which is able to stand on the market while carrying out a public mission: promoting and spreading the beauty of music. Our business formula (which is unique in Italy), is the reason why we enthusiastically joined MAMA. MAMA is a specialized MASTER PROGRAM that is built around our idea that producing cultural and social value goes hand in hand with being efficient, effective and autonomous in day-to-day activities.

The Art Newspaper aims to be a 'need to know' (rather than a 'nice to know') publication and to serve the information needs of everyone with a professional involvement in the art world (i.e. artists, museum curators, dealers, collectors, auctioneers, lawyers, arts administrators ‹and interested lay people). We are glad to partner with SDA Bocconi School of Management as we share the same values and skills in the reporting and interpretation of worldwide artistic and cultural development.

Bocconi University and SKIRA group are two examples of Italian excellence, with strong international orientation and a continuous search for the highest quality in all programs and projects. Sharing this commitment, the partnership between SKIRA and SDA Bocconi School of Management for the Master in Arts Management and Administration represents an important opportunity for organizations like SKIRA Group who strive to make arts and culture fundamental drivers for the economic, cultural and social development of a beautiful country like Italy.

We are pleased to be partners with SDA Bocconi and exchange our experience with MAMA participants.
They will discover the excitement and complexity of managing a theatre, which is continuously changing. Franco Parenti was founded in 1972 on an idea of a free, open and evolving culture. Everyday, our offerings integrate styles, cultures and different generations in many different spaces running at the same time.

The management of Italy’s cultural heritage, currently carried out almost exclusively by the Public Administration, urgently requires the formation of new professionals. The recent reforms by the Minister of Cultural Heritage, Dario Franceschini, and the appointment of twenty new directors for the most important museums in Italy, are a sign of the importance and interdisciplinary of this sector. Thus, it has become necessary to define, and determine the resources necessary, to achieve new objectives.

The management of Italy's historic-artistic and musical heritage requires professional figures, combined with artistic ones, able to effectively promote and value the infinite resources available in our country, creating value for the entire cultural system. SDA Bocconi’s MAMA Program represents a unique opportunity for revitalizing the musical activities through the training of specialized and dedicated professionals.

Well-known worldwide for the famous Veiled Christ, one of the most famous and impressive works of art in the world, the Sansevero Chapel Museum is a place filled with beauty and mystery, located in the heart of the historical center of Naples. The Sansevero Chapel Museum is a privately owned art institution, committed not only to preserve, value and promote our own cultural heritage but also to recover and develop the historic, environmental and social context in which we operate. We are happy to be a partner with MAMA – Master in Arts Management and Administration and we are sure that the discussions and debates with professionals and outstanding art institutions represent an opportunity to exchange views and experiences and to innovate in the field of art management.

Recently, the Archaeological Park and  Museum of Paestum have been granted financial and administrative autonomy by the Italian ministry of culture and tourism. This is a great chance, but also an enormous challenge for all who work in and around Paestum. We collaborate with MAMA Bocconi because we think that both sides can profit from exploring new possibilities for the management, controlling, research, promotion and communication in Paestum and beyond. The potential of the site that houses some of the best preserved Greek temples of the Mediterranean are beyond doubt - to develop this potential we need energy, creativity and courage.

Italian excellence passes through the continuous reworking of a code that needs, now more than ever, adequate interpreters. Interpreters who are able to understand and value a vision and an aesthetic, a culture and a thought, an art and a fertile craft. The MAMA program, through management training sensitive to artistic and cultural heritage, goes exactly in this direction. The best wishes must therefore be addressed to those who learn to work with intelligent hands, with inquisitive and curious minds, with a heart full of passion, to always live up to expectations. All this beauty has to become recognizable, appreciated and shared. It has to exceed expectations, to reach that awe  which is the origin - today, and yet in spite of everything - of poetry.

The partnership with MAMA gets stronger year by year and it makes us very proud: together to educate, divulgate and train with excellence.

The Rossini Opera Festival does not merely stage Rossini's operas, it is also a complex cultural operation of applied musicology and publishing with the goal to restore the somewhat forgotten and unpublished work of Gioachino Rossini. This operation is made possible thanks to cooperation with Fondazione Rossini in Pesaro and Casa Ricordi in Milano. Because of its diversity, the ROF requires a management with multi-tasking skills that only a program like MAMA can give, with a special expertise in this type of Festival.  We look forward to contributing to MAMA as well as learning from the experience of other musical institutions.

The Museo Egizio is the second largest collection after the Cairo Museum being entirely dedicated to Egyptian art and culture. Since its establishment, one of its main feature is research, carried out in Italy and internationally, with the aim of the cultural development worldwide.
Despite dualism has always been a key concept of the Ancient Egypt’s ideology, the new Museo Egizio is avoiding the dualism among curatorship and management, demonstrating how a competent and passionate director is aware of both the cultural-archeological and the managerial needs and roles of a museum.
The partnership with the SDA Bocconi School of Management, within the MAMA, is a great chance to witness Italian excellence in the field of cultural management in an international setting, and a great opportunity to collaborate to improve our heritage administration.

Since 1995, MUBA - Museo dei Bambini Milano has pursued innovative projects that combine culture, creativity and non formal education, shaping a unique "MUBA" method capable of demonstrating how to make culture for children an activity with a strong social impact.
“We are pleased to be a partner of MAMA as we firmly believe in the necessity for an increase in more specialized professionals in the management of our cultural and historical heritage. Moreover, we are looking forward to be part of a group of outstanding institutions with whom to share our experiences and best practices in order to promote a deeper development in cultural management.”

A master program like MAMA represents an opportunity for the cultural and professional growth of those interested in protecting, conserving and promoting our immense cultural heritage. The value is even higher if this is done in Italy, a country that is far behind in the promotion of its cultural heritage. Learning and studying the most effective management practices is critical for the long-term success of cultural organizations, and this is also the force behind my commitment in the publishing sector. We are proud and honored to support the professional growth of young talents, together with many other important partners and Bocconi University.

Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli is an integrated cultural center connected to different spheres of interests: corporations, research institutes and Universities. The Foundation represents a new way of making culture in a critical perspective by integrating books and digital products. With respect to this background, the chance to work in partnership with SDA Bocconi and MAMA is a unique opportunity to contribute to the value of Italian cultural industries and human capital.

We are proud to be able to produce and organise events worldwide, this represents for us a great opportunity to engage and foster young talents. We involve many of them in our shows and we know that MAMA is an important place where to drawn brilliant professionals.

Innovation, creativity, participation, and experience are some of the didactic cornerstones of the Mission of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao which, taking a holistic approach to education, aims to propose its different target audiences a wealth of knowledge and information about the art program, the building designed by Frank Gehry, and its particular management model.
We are extremely pleased to forge a new alliance with MAMA by SDA Bocconi, one of the most prestigious business schools in the world, and work together to offer students a new forum for research, discussion and exchange.