Two years after death of Sergio Marchionne, which took place on 25 July 2018, I would like to remember him with this writing of mine, having worked under his direction until 2012 when, after 40 years, I left the company due to having reached the age limit.
His appointment as head of Fiat it is preceded by very difficult years with the company in rapid decline, but Sergio Marchionne will revive its fortunes and will be able to create dedication and enthusiasm around him, encouraging collaborators, managers, technicians and workers, to give their best, creating that “team spirit” without which it is difficult to achieve great feats.
These were critical years also for Fiat's top management: in the space of four years, from 2000 to 2004, in the parent company four managing directors succeed each other and, in the same period, another three in Fiat Auto.
On 1 June 2004, the previous managing director resigned from the Agnelli family, Joseph Morchio, due to his attempt to assume full powers after the death of Umberto Agnelli, Sergio Marchionne therefore becomes CEO of the Fiat Group.
Although he has sat on the Board of Directors of Fiat as an independent director for some years (at the time he was the CEO of the Swiss SGS - Société Génerale de Surveillance), he is a totally unknown character not only among workers but also among first-level management.
Debuts with the presentation of a rigorous cost containment plan and industrial relaunch, such as to find a positive response, after years, even among the metalworkers' unions, including Fiom.
In the following months his name began to circulate among the Turin workers when at Mirafiori inaugurates the line of the new Punto also demonstrating to the city of Turin its willingness to invest in the historic Fiat plant (in 2010 it will then reactivate the former Bertone plant in Grugliasco, concentrating the production of Maseratis there with Mirafiori).
That day will be one of the few times that Sergio Marchionne, surrounded by workers, will be photographed in a suit and tie: he later happened to wear a jacket and tie only when visiting the Pope and the President of the Republic, but not Obama or Trump, while he will put the tie back on the famous black sweater on the occasion of the presentation of his latest Business Plan in June 2018, as from a promise previously made to wear it again only when the debt is cancelled.
The link between Sergio Marchionne and the Fiat workers, in his 14 years in the company, was already established after a few months, when wins tug of war with General Motors to avoid the transfer of the auto sector to the Americans. Sergio Marchionne opens the game in September 2004 when he informs GM that there will be no postponements on the exercise of the "put" by Fiat for the sale of Fiat Auto.
A tough negotiation will follow with the Americans committed to avoiding the forced takeover of the car and Sergio Marchionne determined not to withdraw from his position to exercise the "put". It was a kind of poker, by the way his favorite card game.
The Americans just had to go and see whether or not he was bluffing in the stated willingness to exercise the put clause, but they didn't want to take the risk and at the last minute, before the deadline and in the face of a threatened legal action by Fiat, intent on asserting its rights, in February 2005 they gave in and reached the signing of an onerous agreement, in order not to take over Fiat Auto.
GM paid the Lingotto coffers a check for 1,55 billion euros, giving back to Fiat, as Sergio Marchionne said, "the freedom to implement alternative growth strategies for Fiat Auto". From that moment among the Fiat workers that popularity and trust is born in him which will tangibly materialize in the referendum victory of the "yes" in favor of his plans to relaunch production in Pomigliano, Mirafiori and Grugliasco.
On the evening of 4 July 2007, the rebirth found its icon in the new Fiat 500, in a suggestive presentation ceremony on the LungoPo in Turin, born from a project that had gathered dust in the drawers of the Centro Stile and on which, on the contrary, Sergio Marchionne has believed in its industrialization and marketing, proving to be also a formidable product man.
In 2008, despite the specter of a global economic crisis that will not even spare the automotive industry, Sergio Marchionne lets Fiat score record operating profit of 3 billion euros. It is the solid foundation that allows him the stroke of genius to "buy" a share of the American car market, taking over Chrysler now in bankruptcy proceedings.
The Chrysler deal will make Sergio Marchionne the real "demiurge" of the rebirth of Fiat, comparable if not superior to Valletta himself, not only for the greatness of the manager but of the real entrepreneur.
On 10 June 2009, Fiat obtained 20% of the American company and Sergio Marchionne was appointed CEO with the endorsement of President Barack Obama. An alliance will start which will lead within a few years to the merger of Fiat with Chrysler to form, in 2014, with FCA one of the leading automotive groups in the world.
Sergio Marchionne has always had it clear, as an Italian at heart though often considered a foreign manager, that the profits produced in the restored Chrysler had to cover the losses that the Italian plants would still suffer for a long time pending the launch of new products, as envisaged in its latest 2018-2022 Business Plan.
Moreover, to relaunch and consolidate the Italian factories, it started in 2010 a close confrontation with the metalworkers' unions to modernize the corporate system of industrial relations.
In betting on the relaunch of national manufacturing, starting with the transfer of production of the Panda from Poland to Pomigliano d'Arco, asked the unions and workers to exchange between the intensification, regularization and predictability of work performance, with an increase in the productivity of the labor factor aimed at saturating the plants, and a salary linked to the achievement of results.
A new work organization was introduced in the factories, the WCM (World Class Manufacturing), which promotes employee participation to the management of the production process and a new bargaining model is created, free from the snares and snares of the country's industrial relations system, with the signing of a new Collective Labor Agreement applied to all Fiat workers and more advantageous, also in terms economic, of the CCNL of metalworkers of Confindustria.
Her last public appearance, now suffering, is the one who perhaps reunites his professional history with his family origin, son of Carabinieri marshal Concezio Marchionne, when he delivered, on June 26, 2018, to the General Command of the Arma in Rome a Jeep Wrangler equipped for patrolling in beach.
As often happens, a sudden disappearance not only interrupts a story, but cloaks the previous period in a positivity that today would perhaps be denied by the post-pandemic crisis in the automotive sector and from the new and changed international scenarios.
Those who remain indelible in the memories of those who lived that period in the company, however, are the driving ability, determination, professional excellence by Sergio Marchionne and the successes to which Fiat led.
