“We are history” and nothing is truer than this statement as in the case of Generali. So true that Philippe Donnet, Group CEO of the Lion, in presenting the two volumes by Marsilio dedicated to the 190 years of life of the insurance giant – “Generali in history” – he starts from here: “History is a collective work and we who are confronted today with the new interest rate challenges zero interest, increasingly stringent regulation, the constantly evolving climatic and technological challenge, we want to reinvent the group to keep it abreast of innovation but remaining faithful to our long history. We are an almost 200-year-old start-up”.
If behind Generali's back there is the huge archive that fed the two volumes, one dedicated to the 800th century, the other to the 900th century in a journey that roughly starts from the Congress of Vienna and reaches the threshold of the new millennium , ahead – explains Donnet again – there is always and still Europe with which Generali has intertwined its destinies so much that it is always at the top of the group's strategies.
“Europe – says the top manager – is important for Generali: here we have 50 million customers, 100 distributors and 95% of our turnover comes from here”. Just as the group announces the sale of the business in the Netherlands, Donnet confirms that Italy, France and Germany are strategic, that other areas are - precisely - marginal and are part of the disposal package. “We want to grow in Europe but also diversifying in Asia (China), Latin America (Argentina) and Cuba. Donnet confirms himself as a convinced pro-European and even more so now that “growth is returning and we are beginning to see signs of it. It is an illusion – he continues – to think that there is a road outside Europe, instead more integration is needed. A unified finance minister is now a necessary figure just as it is necessary to broaden the European engine: the France-Germany axis is no longer enough, there is a need for more Italy in Europe”.
Words that integrate well with the intervention of the president of the EU Commission, Jean Claude Juncker, who saw in the ongoing economic recovery the push to relaunch political integration and the superminister of the Eurozone. But while Juncker spoke today Wednesday in Strasbourg, Generali called managers, bankers, shareholders in Rome on Tuesday evening to present its historical volume: from Salvatore Rossi of Bankitalia to Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone, from Fabio Cerchiai (vice chairman of UnipolSai) to Umberto Quadrino (chairman Tages), to Giuseppe De Rita and Luigi Abete. The presentation – which was attended not only by Donnet himself, but also by Marta Dassù, Paolo Magri and Paolo Mieli – was closed by the Minister of Cultural Heritage Dario Franceschini.
A parterre that demonstrates the attention paid to a publication that Cesare De Michelis, president of Marsilio Editore, describes as "an extraordinary experience: 15 kilometers of archives to tell the story of a successful company that becomes a chapter in European social, cultural and civil history and that has its roots from the outset in a border area multicultural, between Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, ahead of our times".
The handwritten curriculum vitae of Franz Kafka who worked for a year with Generali, the insurance policy for the explorer Umberto Nobile, the policy of Pope St. Pius X, the fire at the La Fenice theater which Generali compensated twice: in 1836 with 250 Austrian lire and in 1996 when it burned down and was almost completely destroyed. These are some of the stories contained in the two volumes of "Generali nella Storia", created thanks to the group's documentary heritage consisting of thousands of volumes, reports, reports, minutes, contracts, photographs, and which contains general historical profiles and a review of brief news on the various eras that help to contextualize the history of the Compagnia in the economic-political panorama of reference. From war insurance to hail insurance, innovative at the time. A Work in progress or, as Donnet puts it, “a 200-year-old startup”.
