Thank you, Capgemini

Tomorrow it will be my last day at Capgemini. As my excitement and enthusiasm grow for the new journey I will soon start, my mind recalls all the accomplishments and wonderful people I have met during these years. Quoting Peter Drucker, "Culture eats strategy for breakfast", as stated recently also by Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft. In my years at Capgemini, success has been as much powered by shared values as by the technical and managerial skills of the colleagues I have worked with. I’m convinced that we achieved very ambitious targets together, mostly thanks to the sharing of profound values. Those same values which defined a winning and collaborative culture, for which (I hope) I also contributed.

During my first days at Capgemini I learned how seven group values have been at the heart of Capgemini since its beginning. I’m impressed by how these values describe the way we worked in all these years, with clients, partners, and colleagues. Capgemini’s greatest assets are its culture and its shared values, therefore the people who constitute it. I had the privilege to work with a large number of outstanding people. Many of them have become true friends to me. Here is a special “thank you note” for some of these friends, who represented for me examples and sometimes even “role models” of our Capgemini Group values.

Boldness: and entrepreneurial attitude, with an ability to continuously generate new (innovative) value propositions, taking risks when appropriate. This is definitely part of Hovsep Avagyan’s profile. Few people have his capacity to periodically challenge consolidated opinions and the status quo, which I think is at the very soul of competitiveness.

Freedom: this term indicates independence in thoughts, judgment and deeds, as well as the attitude to always voice out one’s own opinion! For me these have been Margherita Bassi and Andrea Monaco, who (despite reporting to me ;-) often challenged me on my strategic courses and managerial decisions. Sometimes I changed my mind, sometimes I didn’t. Always it has been formative and indeed vital listening to them (as well as to many others colleagues) for improving my choices. Thanks for everything!

Honesty: Loyalty, integrity, uprightness, are some of the words which come to mind when I think of Adolfo Sforza. I’m speaking about really putting “integrity” above one’s own interests! This is for me Adolfo, and honesty this is one of the strongest values I experienced in Capgemini, at large, in many colleagues (Davide Iotti, Mirko Liberatore, Laura Bochicchio and the list could be almost endless)

Trust: I have always done my best to empower both individuals and teams in my career. This has always been at the core of my management priorities, and Capgemini has been a great place to nurture this approach. When you have the luck to work with people like Daniela Farulla, Pietro Petrera, Giorgio Figari and the like, it is easy to have decisions made as close as possible to the point where they will be put into practice. With this kind of exceptional people trust has become an asset, enabling us to have real openness towards other people feedbacks, as well as the widest possible sharing of ideas and information.

Modesty: This is probably the value which surprised me the most when I started my journey at Capgemini. It indicates easiness and openness, the very opposite of pomposity and arrogance. Also, it means being discreet, showing natural modesty, and being attentive to others, for instance taking the responsibility to be understood by others. It is somehow uncommon among “standard” corporate values. Still, I think it is a strong characteristic of Capgemini, and it is indeed a great value! Many people I worked with possessed this attribute, although few lived it at the level of Riccardo Elia, Marco Hassid, or Samanta Molla. Also for this reason, these people are absolute talents, to me!

Fun: In Capgemini it means feeling good about being part of a business unit or one’s team, feeling proud of what one does, feeling a sense of accomplishment in the search for better quality, and feeling part of challenging projects. For me it means all of this and also much more, including the opportunity to work with a large number of junior high potentials, as well as keeping an high positive spirit also during challenging contexts (thanks, Alexander Glaser, Dario Corvino, Marta Ruggeri and all teams).

Team Spirit: I think this is the glue which keeps everything together. It means collaboration, commitment, generosity, fairness, accepting responsibilities, and an instinctive willingness to support common efforts when the storm is raging. This is probably the key value which enabled us to achieve (and often exceed) targets which seemed almost impossible, e.g. growing the business by 300%+ in the last years. I really felt part of a team while at Capgemini, and this is what I will remember the most of this great company.

These seven Group Values describe much of the seven years I worked in Capgemini. Thank you Maurizio, thank you Eraldo, thank you Alessandra, and thank you all for this.