On January 24 2017 Claudio Descalzi, CEO ENI was guest at L4T – Leader for Talent – a series of meetings aimed for Specialized Masters Students. This insight was written by Teresa Marotta, student of the Master in Tax Law.
Mr.Claudio Descalzi, in meeting our students explained his position, the aims to pursue, but most of all the goals to achieve. To be a leader means being able to decide basing your judgement on values, take risks and be a true testimony of the relationship between people and the company. Leadership which Mr. Descalzi described is the overall container where we treasure our life choices that build the future of a big company, questioning many of the features commonly associated with successful personalities.
Change is the principle which guides Claudio Descalzi’s life even before the development of his career. In Africa, as a resevoir engineer at the beginning of his working experience in ENI: a continent that has been a challenge to the spirit of adaption given the life conditions but especially for the corporate policies that ENI had to define and implement. This meant choosing where to build the infrastructure required to produce energy from gasses.
For Claudio Descalzi to be a leader means never loose track of the reality in which the company has an effect and impact on and therefore is helping to build. To be aware of all this is choice which led ENI to renounce to an increase in profits to favour local communities’ access to energy which had none, in countries where more than half of the population suffered death as consequence of biofuel. Social responsibility is the reason which led Claudio Descalzi to continue to work in Africa: a leader chooses his challenges “personal success is short lived and can led to mistakes”: leadership which brings true results is such because it is what drives you out from the maze of success at all costs. “The secret is to have no memory. I learned to forget what I had already achieved and start always from zero”. Team work makes a company big.
Respect and the use of diverse abilities as a common denominator allow a leader to enhance every single talent. Dialogue underlines diversity as the engine of team work and of inclusive leadership which can transform a diverse group in a united team: “different worlds grow and work becomes optimal if you give to others your true self, generosity is joy in giving”.
Since his studies in Physics, Descalzi has brought to ENI his curiosity for insights and a crucial attitude towards innovation. This is the reason which has led ENI to promote and support a long-term project on renewable energies to not be “deaf and blind” in front of climate change. Africa is the privileged setting for the development of this project thanks to the opportunity to develop and build photovoltaic plants which substitute gas with solar energy. A project which does not exclude Italy through the requalification of old refineries – the known “clean landfills” –for the implant of photovoltaic panels and the reduction of CO2 in the air.
Leader for Talent once again is an important appointment to meet leaders of today, discover new motivations and examples so that students may develop an overall perspective and can face new challenges.
(Article by Teresa Marotta, student of the Master in Tax Law)
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10/02/2017
