Confindustria, where are you going? What is behind the dismissal of Director General Mariotti? Bonomi management fails

Sometimes it happens that a dismissal leads to unexpected, difficult, perhaps even risky, but ultimately fruitful turns. So it was with i layoffs of Mirafiori between the Seventies and Eighties where the firmness of Cesare Romiti, then CEO of Fiat, marked the change of industrial relations in Italy.

On the contrary, the dismissal of the General Director of Confindustria, Frances Mariotti. A decision taken directly by the President of Confindustria Carlo Bonomi at the end of his mandate, as if he wanted to distance himself from the decline of authority, of "weight", which grips Viale dell'Astronomia. The gesture (left half done given the double duty of Dr. Mariotti) did not redeem in the slightest the Presidency of Bonomi, weakened by failures, hit in prestige, nor that of an association reduced to an enclave, with a few worthy exceptions, of past presidencies of the provincial Rotary.

Confindustria: Mariotti's dismissal, what difficulties it reveals

In Rome they are reflected in most of the deep-rooted difficulties of the country's Confindustria network: fewer and fewer members, interprovincial mergers of services and representations due to coffers no longer as full as they once were, with many aspirants to the top who are difficult to identify due to turnover, history, product, industrial innovation or vital personalities such as Schumpeter he identified with the entrepreneur.

The name of a career diplomat will certainly not be enough to reinvigorate the confederal leadership between now and May. On the contrary. The choice underlines it even more stalemate of the confederal machine that the careful attention always paid once by the then General Director Franco Mattei wanted to be efficient, informed, capable of producing managers of value and great professional ability.

Taranto and Piombino are the first testing grounds for the new General Director

Searching for Confindustria's operational guidance in the muffled corridors of the Farnesina is a bit like throwing up your hands. Especially in the times that lie ahead of us. We expect them in a few months at the decisive junction of Taranto and Piombino. The signal that emerges is that of one visual navigation.

We will see the strategic choices in the face of a territorial representation network that has been weakened for years or that of the categories that are increasingly enclosed in their "particular interests" given the economic and image success of Coldiretti led by Ettore Prandini. We will see the decisions on the weakened Sole 24 Ore or on the fate of a LUISS which in recent times has only multiplied professorships, courses and stoats but not authority.