For 13 years, she was a Partner of Reply, a company active in technological innovation and business digitization support. Her experience is distinguished by a strong focus on innovation, customer focus and digital transformation. Annamaria is a business angel of Italian Angels for Growth (IAG) and actively involved in female entrepreneurship as a member of Angels4Women. Let's get to know her better.
Can you tell us something about your educational and professional background? How did the decision to study Electronic Engineering come about?
The desire to study Electronic Engineering stemmed from an interest in scientific subjects and the desire to embark on a path that would allow me to keep up to date with scientific and technological discoveries. It was a tiring path, both in terms of commitment to study and confrontation with a predominantly male reality, but a stimulating one.
You have worked with large Key Accounts in the Energy, Utilities and Financial sectors to support them in defining and executing their digital transformation strategies. Can you give us some examples of how the adoption of innovative technologies, such as big data, artificial intelligence and blockchain, are key today?
I would say that the use of these innovative technologies is now part of our everyday life and we do not even realize we are using them. Just think of the speed with which we now approach services such as searching for a topic on Internet search engines, an instant bank transfer made from a mobile phone, organizing a trip only through a computer, or banally asking for the weather forecast by voice in the morning to the voice assistant we have at home, to understand how much technological innovation has changed our lives and made certain processes of our everyday life easier.
If we then think about business processes, we need only refer to how blockchain, so well-known only for bitcoin or crypto currencies, can, on the other hand, be useful for preventing counterfeiting in luxury companies or can support the certification of production processes in the world of food. Not to mention the big data and computing power that have enabled us to make breakthroughs in the analysis of the human genome and that will soon lead us to the research and discovery of ad personam drug cures.
IAG Business Angel and member of the Angels4Women association, dedicated to start-ups led by women. How do you assess the current state of female entrepreneurship in Italy and what advice do you offer to tackle entrepreneurial challenges?
In general, I believe that Italy still has a lot to do in terms of entrepreneurship and support for start-ups. We are far behind compared to American or European contexts. Many of our young talents take their ideas abroad to be able to find funding and implement them, especially in the pre-seed phase.
As far as female entrepreneurship is concerned, specifically, from what I have noticed over the years of my personal experience in the world of angel investors, there is a lack of STEM proposals from women. As a percentage, I believe there is still a cultural bias that leads women to work in low-tech sectors and more focused on humanistic and psychological contexts.
How do you manage to maintain the balance between being a mentor and giving start-ups the freedom to find their own way? An example where you had to balance these two aspects?
I admit that it is quite a difficult subject to deal with, especially for those who, like me, come from structured work experiences and are confronted with confusing situations and with young people who have never seen a company in their work experience. What I have learnt is that you should never think you are in the right but listen and understand if there is something to be learnt even from a context that seems not in line with your experience. Keeping an open mind is a good approach.
Is there a book, person or experience that has particularly influenced your professional and personal outlook?
I am a person who reads a lot and many books have influenced my path. I generally tend to read about fields I am unfamiliar with and about innovations in contexts unknown to me. Many people have also influenced my personal life and professional career, some positively and some negatively. What has helped me so much in this life and career path has been to never turn off my curiosity, to not remain focused on what I already knew, but to continue to study and seek knowledge.
If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self at the beginning of your career, what would it be?
It would have been nice to live the me of then with the experience of now. Many things would have been experienced with less impatience and more awareness of their value, but unfortunately this is not possible. And anyway, the mistakes or impatience of youth have also made me who I am.