Pioneers of Europe: Sergio Marchionne 🇮🇹
Europe's answer to Tim Cook (with a more offensive playmaking) 🚗
Read Time: 2.40 Minutes
This is 'Pioneers of Europe' from the Jupiter Dispatch, the monthly feature highlighting european entrepreneurs, exciting startups, and stories of the greats from the old continent.
The Godfather of Fiat: Sergio Marchionne (died 2018)
Some years ago I skimmed through the daily news and got hit by several death news of a to me unknown business manager...
This manager was Sergio Marchionne... So far so normal...
But I got curious and started to research him, because even famous non-business newspapers and politicians posted their condolences about him.
Sergio was a truly special leader. He took over the CEO job at Fiat (also owner of Chrysler) and turned around a very broken and unstable automaker to a successful big player in european and international markets.
But the most surprising thing is, that every partner, every customer and all of his employees are talking very highly about him.
Fiat had an unreal comeback under his reigns… (only 13 mins)
I encourage you to learn more about him and more importantly of his style & values.
But to me the most outstanding thing was his ability to be an “acting” CEO. Too many heads of big corps are only “managing” the trajectory of the business instead of moving things in a company to a better future themself.
Like Zuckerberg or Musk, Sergio had his office near by his engineers, not in the top of a tower. He worked daily and closely on the products which are facing the customers with them together.
A key strategy especially if you take over a struggling legacy business, big or small.
Here is a great speech he gave at the famous Bocconi University before he died... (ex prime minister Mario Monti is the announcer 🇮🇹)
We’re done. You can find more interviews with Sergio at Youtube, I promise your time is worth this.
Feel free to comment below. I will answer.
See you soon for the next ‘Transmission’.
PS 👆 I would love it if you give me a follow at X by clicking my name above.
