Maria Cristina Farioli

Director of Industries and Business Development at IBM

Responsibility, commitment and determination. Maria Cristina Farioli, who graduated in Business Administration from Università Cattolica in 1985 - in just three years and eight months, and with four more exams - is now Director of Industries and Business Development at IBM Italy, one of the largest IT companies in the world. Her role doesn't scare her, quite the contrary. Chatting with her, you can understand how she is always looking for new challenges that continuously put her to the test.

You graduated from Università Cattolica in Business Administration, what memories do you have of those years? How important were they to get to where he is now?

I have a wonderful memory, I loved studying and I loved being at Cattolica, so much so that I arrived in the morning at 8 a.m. and left in the evening at 8 p.m. During those years, then, I was an active part of university politics and those interests of mine also pushed me to take four more exams outside of my degree course. Despite this, I managed to finish my studies early. The professor who understood me the most is undoubtedly Luigi Filippini, with whom I still have a relationship of mutual esteem. She considered me a model student. I still remember the day I went to ask him for my thesis and he asked me to study the job market in Scandinavia. I wasn't convinced by the idea, I thought about it and after three days I came back with a counter-proposal: robotics at Fiat. He told me that he didn't know her very well, but he would help me and sign all the cover letters. I was left free to do things, even though I was constantly followed. But it wasn't just him, I had other great teachers. I remember Alberto Quadrio Curzio's lectures in which we didn't want to miss a single word, those with Gianfranco Miglio and those of Professor Piero Giarda of Financial Economics.

This love for the university has not been lost, so much so that he now gives lectures in various Italian universities.

It's true, I always have a passion for studies and in-depth studies. On the other hand, even after joining IBM, I continued to collaborate with Professor Filippini for seven years, holding a seminar in his degree course.

Bearing witness in universities is highly stimulating, because you are faced with young people who are increasingly open and lucid, they want to provoke and for us it is a way to confront and see things from a different point of view.

Often those who work in the corporate world tend to change different realities, trying to differentiate their curriculum. You, on the other hand, chose a different path and remained at IBM. How come?

When I joined, there was a different philosophy and a different job market. It's true, I've been with IBM since the mid-1980s, but I've constantly changed roles. I worked as a strategy consultant, I worked on security, small and medium-sized businesses, software, competitive markets and then smart cities. The beauty of my journey is precisely this, that I have never been bored because I have always had to reinvent myself.

The company I'm in is fascinating because it's rich in content, it has 104 years of history which is equivalent to over a century of innovation. And if I look ahead, I see just as many exciting things that IBM is doing in its research centers, for me this is a source of pride and enrichment. In these 30 years, of course, I have had moments of disorientation in which I said to myself "now I'm going".

I advise young people to try a multinational company because it is highly educational, but since the job market is evolving, it is important to change and deal with different realities.

From Presenza, 2015 – Ne ha fatta di strada by Niccolò De Carolis