Piacentini (Amazon.com) and Cioli (SKY) awarded by the Bocconi Alumni Association
Two managers projected into the future who operate in companies with a high technological and cultural content: this year the two prestigious awards Bocconian of the Year and Master of Masters of the Bocconi Alumni Association will be awarded respectively to Diego Piacentini, Senior Vice President International of Amazon.com, and Laura Cioli, Chief Operating Officer at SKY Italia.
The awards, which will be presented on Friday 29th October, "are awarded every year to who, formed at Università Bocconi, has distinguished himself for prestige in the professional, cultural or social field, supporting and spreading in Italy and abroad the values and tradition of Università Bocconi with its five schools," explains Pietro Guindani, President of the Bocconi Alumni Association. "With a community of 80,000 alumni, our mission is to be a positive force of society, able to mobilize the best energies of the people who have grown professionally and culturally inside the Bocconi world."
Piacentini, who graduated in Political economics in 1985, is the 23rd graduate to be bestowed with the title of Bocconian of the Year, awarded for the first time in 1987. In Amazon.com since 2000, Piacentini covers the role of Senior Vice President and is responsible for the international sector, which represents around 50% of Amazon revenues, and for several technological sectors of the business. Piacentini is member of the Executive Team which reports directly to Jeff Bezos. Previously he worked in Apple, becoming Vice President and General manager of Apple Computer Europe. Also committed in the social and humanitarian field, Piacentini is part of the advisory board of Endeavor, a global non profit organization which helps entrepreneurs in the developing world, and of the Foster school of business of the University of Washington. He is also member of the board of the Maasai Association which supports health and education initiatives in Kenya.
"I look back on the road travelled and I deem myself lucky to have learnt from people who have a repulsion for clichés and dogmas and have an innate ability to innovate and invent and the vision to change the status quo, to subvert the rules. I thank you for this award for which I am humbly honored," comments Piacentini.
The Master of Masters award, dedicated to those who have obtained an MBA at SDA Bocconi, goes to Laura Cioli. The first woman to receive the title, Cioli, who covers the role of COO at SKY Italia since June 2008, is head of various strategic departments: chief technology officer, sales&marketing, service&delivery, CRM, business, third channels (channels of the platform dedicated to tv series, entertainment, lifestyle, documentaries, news and music) and public affairs. Previously she was partner at Bain & Company; strategy and development director, operations director and business division director at Vodafone Italia and retail market & power senior Vice President at ENI Gas & Power.
"The MBA signaled a key passage in my path, enriching my education as an engineer with contents and instruments which revealed themselves fundamental in my professional affairs," explains Cioli. "I thus owe a lot to this experience and am honored to receive this acknowledgement. And as the first woman to be awarded I can't but hope to open a path to many other female professionals."