Marinella Soldi is the new President of Vodafone Foundation. Born in Florence, she held the position of managing director of Southern Europe in Discovery for 10 years. She has been a senior manager at MTV Networks Europe and Senior Vice President of Strategic Development in London, as well as General Manager of MTV Italy in Milan. She began her career at McKinsey as a strategy consultant for three years in London and Italy. She is currently a Non Executive Director member of the boards of Nexi and Ariston Thermo Group and is Senior Advisor on the Board of Talent Garden.
La Vodafone Foundation is an autonomous structure which, born in 2002, operates throughout the national territory through social solidarity activities. From 2014 to today, their commitment has led to the investment of around 17 million euros in four macro areas: dissemination of sports practice among people with disabilities (OSO - Every Sport Beyond), Health and research, Youth and social enterprise, support for weaker individuals.
Among the initiatives launched by the Vodafone Foundation, OSO – Every Sport Beyond is a platform open to all designed to put people with disabilities, instructors and sports professionals into contact and where you can find all the information you need to practice sports. Just two years after its inception, the OSO portal has picked up over 8.200 enrollments e mapped 2.600 associations on the Italian territory becoming a real one point of reference for the Paralympic sport in Italy.
The investment of 2,7 million euros, the Foundation has also created some innovative solutions designed for the treatment of specific pathologies like the projectBeautiful eyed babies” which has allowed 30 girls affected by Rett syndrome – who can neither speak nor move – to interact with the outside world and communicate through the simple movement of the eyes through the use of advanced technological devices. Or again the support given to scientific research, an area in which the Vodafone Foundation, with the support of Airc, has developed "Dream Lab”, the app that exploits the computing power of the smartphone to accelerate cancer research and which, launched in Italy in May 2019, has already totaled over 16 downloads.
Disseminate the positive impact that technology can have on society is another of the topics on which the Vodafone Foundation has focused and financed with 4.4 million euro. She did it with projects like think for social,designed to stimulate young people to create innovative solutions with a high social impact, o Digital for Social, for the digitization of the third sector.
There are also many initiatives aimed at the weakest social categories with an overall commitment of around 2 million euros.
Furthermore, on 23 July, Fondazione Vodafone Italia appointed four new members of the Board of Directors which is currently composed as follows:
- Maria Cristina Ferradini, Managing Director
- Sabrina Casalta, Advisor (Head of Vodafone Business Products, Services & Platform Vodafone)
- Andrew of Antioch, Director (Head of Sales Operations Vodafone– Area North)
- Silvia de Blasio, Director (Head of Media Relations & Corporate Comms Vodafone)
- Laura Grasso, Director (Head of HR Corporate Functions, Vodafone)
- Maria Piccolo, Advisor (Head of Mobile & Fixed Network Deployment Vodafone – Area South)
- Claudio Raimondi, Advisor (Tribe Leader – Head of Digital & AI Vodafone)
- Donatella Isaiah, Counsellor
Marinella Soldi replaces the current Chairman Donatella Isaia who remains on the Board of Directors as an independent director, starting from 1 September 2019.
