People

Where young talents are nurtured

Prysmian celebrated five years of collaboration between SDA Bocconi School of Management and the Group Academy at the inauguration of the new Training Centre.

Prysmian Group was one of the first Italian companies to create its own international school for professional and managerial training and education, thanks to the co-operation of the renowned SDA Bocconi School of Management. The shared journey began five years ago, with the aim of introducing the best graduate talents from the Milanese University into the company.

Fabrizio Rutschmann, SVP HR & Organisation, stated at the time that Prysmian, as a public company that is committed daily to creating value for all its stakeholders, decided to invest in the education and work placement of young talents that are the company’s most valuable asset and represent its future.

Markus Venzin, Director of Bocconi’s Claudio Dematté Research Division and Director of the Academy, underlined that through co-operation with Prysmian, new ways were developed to increase the impact of higher education on the learning-on-the-job activities in a global company.

Five years on, the Academy is a consolidated global training programme, involving and training burgeoning early career professionals from all over the world. A major step of this strategy of developing human capital was the inauguration of the new Training Centre at the Group’s Milan headquarters, that are now hosting the Academy’s courses. According to Rutschmann, it was “a further step forward in our strategy of developing human capital, which represents a valuable, essential resource for the Group”.

Astonishing numbers

More than 1,500 attendees and 100 training days per year, a figure that is further increasing in 2017, to almost 150 days.

SDA Bocconi included in the FT Ranking

The international daily has recently published the Executive Education Ranking, which this year includes some of Prysmian Group Academy’s education partners around the world.

Prysmian’s main partner SDA Bocconi – which helped the company develop all the Academy’s programmes – was ranked 4th in the world and 3rd in Europe in Customised Programmes, earning 2 positions compared to last year. The Essec Business School and Esade Business School, the universities involved in the development of the Regional Leadership Programs in Southern Europe, were ranked respectively 17th and 29th. The Stockholm School of Economics, which partners Prysmian for the Regional Leadership Programs in Northern Europe, was ranked 38th on a worldwide level and was listed as the best education player for the Nordic and Baltic countries.

The Financial Times annually monitors and evaluates all the best 85 customised programmes and the best 75 open-enrolment programmes worldwide, based on measures of participants’ and clients’ satisfaction, as well as the schools’ growth in revenues, their international reach and faculty diversity.

Markus Venzin, Scientific Director of the Prysmian Group Academy and SDA Bocconi Professor, added: “Our FT ranking reflects SDA Bocconi’s capability in developing intimate customer knowledge, which serves as a basis to design and deliver programmes that accelerate organisational change projects.”

“The FT Education Ranking,” stated Fabrizio Rutschmann,“is a confirmation of our choices. We know our business and how our company works, SDA Bocconi and our other education partners know how to share and improve. Mixing these factors, we have designed and developed a series of learning experiences for our managers and professionals around the world. And we are planning new improvements, like new customised programmes for specific sectors and businesses and the new learning approaches, like the recent Learning Online System.”

SDA Bocconi, Prysmian’s main partner which helped develop all the Academy’s programmes, climbed two spots in the Financial Times ranking gaining the 4th position at world level and the 3rd in Europe in Customised Programmes.

FOUNDING PRINCIPLES

Prysmian has addressed the themes of diversity and inclusion since its very foundation, with the realised goal of creating a modern, functional and respectful working environment. The company developed its Diversity and Inclusion Policy – adopted in every Prysmian facility all over the world – with the purpose of creating an internal industrial culture shared by all employees, in dialogue with local traditions but aimed to the future.

Time to ‘Sell It’ has come

The first edition of the innovative three-year programme, designed to gear up fresh sales teams and get them up-to-speed on selling Group products and culture worldwide, started early in 2017.

The launch represents the starting point of an even deeper commitment by Prysmian Group to nurturing young talents. “This is the first time we have launched a recruiting and training programme dedicated to this kind of professional,” says Fabrizio Rutschmann, Prysmian HR and Organization SVP. “We are certain the strength of the Group and the relevance of our international projects, developed with many partners, will be an interesting point of attraction for the candidates. Our capacity to grow in different markets relies heavily on the quality of our sales team.” The programme includes a month of local on-boarding, then an induction period in Milan, to meet Prysmian’s top management and become familiar the Group’s global HQ, with training at the Global Sales Academy, a partnership with SDA Bocconi Business School located on the Group’s main site.

Taking challenges with confidence

Prysmian Group’s first female CEO, Salli Hara-Haikkala, explains her background and the journey she has shared with the business since her earliest days at the Group.

Recruiter by formation, sales manager by vocation, country manager by self-realisation and now CEO by merit: the route to success undertaken by Salli Hara in Prysmian Group is an excellent example of the opportunities offered by the world leader in the energy and telecom cables. She recalls the early days of her professional experience with Prysmian: “I joined in 2005, straight after the spin-off from Pirelli, as HR Director of Finland, with additional responsibility for legal affairs. It was a very interesting and fundamental phase. We laid the foundations for the sustainable growth of cable business in Finland.”

Salli explains that she made this choice because she strongly believed in the new direction of the company, finding great support from other people, who also shared her vision. “I was ready to grasp the opportunity with enthusiasm,” she says.

The merging of Prysmian and Draka also represented a new opportunity. Salli was asked to become HR Director of the Nordic Region, an entity of Prysmian Group that was specifically created for her. For her, it meant the beginning of an exciting journey to build the organisation, both in terms of structure and putting the right people in the right places.

Education for sustainable development

Prysmian strengthened the partnership with AIESEC’s ‘Youth for Global Goals’ programme, to support the education of the youngest in a more sustainable way of living.

The Group is committed to making the life of people across the world more fulfilling and satisfying. Consistently with this mission, it has developed many collaborative initiatives with several organisations, the last with AIESEC for the ‘Youth for Global Goals’ programme.

The initiative addresses the 17 Sustainable Development Goals identified by the United Nations for the most urgent areas of intervention in the world over the next 15 years. AIESEC is the world’s largest youth-run organisation and strives to achieve peace and fulfilment of humankind’s potential. As such, its latest initiative aims to encourage young people to contribute towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Niels Maurice Caszo, President of AIESEC, praised Prysmian Group as a company with a longstanding commitment to sustainability-related activities, respect for diversity and the delivery of value to people, describing the Group as “the ideal partner for us.”

The skipper

Giancarlo Pedote, with his longstanding expertise and the support of Prysmian Group, entered the IMOCA 60 as co-skipper of Fabrice Amedeo. IMOCA is the acronym of the Monohull Open Classes Association and IMOCA 60 is a 60-foot racing monohull with no fixed boat design.