Face to face on innovation between Banca Generali and one of the most successful start-ups born in Italy, Talent Garden, to discuss the challenges of new business models and the contribution of fintech. Hosted by the Catholic University of Milan by Professor Federico Rajola, the "innovation recipes" of the private bank faced reflections on the role of technology in their respective sectors in front of over 300 students.
Banca Generali's passion for start-ups has already emerged in the meeting reserved for qualified investors together with the "build it up" association in the Hadid tower in Citylife a couple of weeks ago, but during the round table in Cattolica also emerged further details of the company's strategic approach. “The decision to direct ourselves towards an open banking model capable of integrating the best fintech experiences in circulation guarantees new services and ever more quality to our private bankers” explains Gian Maria Mossa – “I certainly envy start-ups the ability to be destructive and continuously innovate processes, but also for us, in our weather management business, the logic that underlies innovation and service improvement is the same: in fact, we look at digital opportunities with work teams that study cutting-edge solutions in circulation, we compare ourselves with the best practices in sectors other than ours, and thus we manage to create a distinctive digital ecosystem of great quality for the people who are the heart of our work". Even for Davide Dattoli -28 years old- the only Italian recently included among the major influencers in Europe under 30 by Forbes magazine, the central value of a start-up's business is in people. “We have been growing 100% year after year for the past 6 years and the investments we are making to expand our co-working spaces find the trust of our shareholders and project lenders in the quality of the people, the strength of the team we are putting together".
Talent Garden is one of the rare examples of start-ups in Italy that has managed to raise tens of millions (60 million) to develop co-working spaces on a European scale. “We started from Brescia with 30 thousand euros from a first investor, Il Giornale di Brescia who believed in us, and now we have 25 centers in eight European countries with 160 employees and an average age of under 31. To understand who we are dealing with, just look at our American rival who raised 11 billion dollars in NYC to finance his project". Dattoli's intuition of creating environments for young people close to digital culture in a world with growing pressure on the labor market in traditional terms, represents one of those keys to open innovation that stimulate the attention of large companies explains the head of Cetif – Rajola – who underlines how the two drivers of the moment are the blockchain and artificial intelligence. “To be innovative in traditional sectors, technology plays a very important role but above all it is a cultural approach; the most important challenge we want to win is to be innovators aiming at sustainable growth, bringing benefits to our consultants and their customers, as well as to the whole system” concludes the number one of the private bank.
