SARGOMMA, the winning company in the “small enterprises” category

Sargomma was established in Turin in the 1980s, when the car industry was booming. Giuseppe Sardo, the owner, collaborated with the most important body shops in Turin and with manufacturing engineers, providing solutions that led to the creation of components for the interiors of the most famous cars of the time, earth moving machines and agricultural machinery. Towards the end of the 1980s, Mr Sardo, together with his customers’ technical offices, saw the possibility of inserting the comfort elements typical of a car in the closed cabins of agricultural machinery. This intuition, thanks to the quality of Sargomma components, guaranteed immediate success. Starting 1985, when his daughter Brigitte joined the company - a novelty in what was up until then an exclusively male sector - Sargomma made important choices that led to the consolidation of the company on the domestic market and expansion abroad through joint ventures and partnerships.

Today, Sargomma boasts 15 million products sold per year, more than 150 customers worldwide and a new generation of young collaborators and employees: a dynamic and largely female team, including in the positions of greatest responsibility. The work carried out by Brigitte Sardo, General Manager of Sargomma, aspires to sharing, respect for all diversity, which is considered an asset, fruitful collaboration and internal dialogue, because “just as we communicate within a company system, we also communicate externally, and this uniquely qualifies the company's character and creates value”. 

In 2020 Sargomma launched Welfare per durare, the first company welfare project carried out with funding from the European Social Fund following a call for tenders from the Piedmont region: despite the difficulties caused by the pandemic, employees experienced a range of welfare services, such as training and coaching, therapeutic listening desk, advice on civil law, personal trainer in the company, company butler service, reorganisation of the work environment in collaboration with IAAD for the development of sustainable solutions and functional to psychological and physical well-being. Brigitte Sardo is involved in UNI working tables for the definition of the gender business certification process, she is Chairwoman of APID Turin (Ass. women entrepreneurs owners of SMEs), Deputy Chairwoman of CAFID (Coordination Ass. Women Entrepreneurs and Managers), CONFAPID (National Group of Women Entrepreneurs) and the Female Entrepreneurship Committee of the Turin Chamber of Commerce. She also plays an active part in several projects, including SAFE (fund-raising project for education against gender-based violence) and Greenfield (all-female corporate team for innovation in Industry 4.0).

For information: www.sargomma.it

QUID, the winning social enterprise in the “medium enterprises” category

Quid is a social enterprise that offers secure employment opportunities to vulnerable people - especially women - who have battled and overcome difficult personal or social situations (69% of employees were unemployed, vulnerable people 63% including young neets, unemployed women aged over 50 and young men and women seeking international protection). It was established in 2013 by five friends sharing a passion for fashion and with a natural vocation for social work. Since then, it has been committed to creating an inclusive work environment, cultivating the untapped talent of enterprising and resilient people, involved in the production of ethical fashion garments under the “Progetto Quid” label and, through collaborations with fashion and lifestyle brands, the creation of capsule collections in co-branding and accessories for companies. In 2014, Quid had 17 employees; today it has 133, 77% of whom are hired on permanent contracts. 83% of the staff are women, 67% of whom are on the Board of Directors and 78% in management positions. The Chairwoman, Anna Fiscale, who was appointed Cavaliere dell’Ordine al Merito of the Italian Republic in December last year, is also a woman.

Following the Covid-19 emergency, to allow its employees to continue working, Quid has converted part of its production to make fabric masks, even achieving the creation of a model authorised by the Italian national health authority (ISS) and the subsequent upgrade of the Cover-up masks, washable surgical masks type IIR.

Since 2018, Quid has activated Liberamente, a welfare programme that supports employees in three key areas - psychological and emotional well-being, digitalisation, assistance with the completion of bureaucratic procedures - and also for the construction of a support network in the territory. It periodically monitors the work-life balance of employees, which shows that satisfaction is higher than the national average.

Other initiatives activated to maximise inclusion include: two tailoring workshops in prisons, offering apprenticeships and contracts to female inmates; a job placement project for women victims of trafficking; the She Will project, development of leadership skills for female staff in coordination roles; while 16 employees took part in #IamRemarkable, training by Team Google on female empowerment.

The Quid Stores operate out of Verona, Milan, Bassano del Grappa, Mestre, Genoa, Bussolengo, Cadriano dell'Emilia and Vallese; the Cooperative Company's products are distributed throughout Italy, in authorised stores and sold online on its website www.progettoquid.it.

For information: www.quidorg.it/

The Women Value Company Intesa Sanpaolo award

The Women Value Company Intesa Sanpaolo award is aimed at small and medium-sized public and private enterprises, excluding sole proprietorships, with a majority of Italian capital and not belonging to groups, which have recorded good performance in view of the particular economic and social situation and which can boast one or more of the following requirements: they have adopted family/work reconciliation actions and services; they promote innovative initiatives aimed at guaranteeing employees a serene management of their time in the company (benefits, vouchers, in-house nurseries, etc.); they implement flexible work organisation policies; they implement non-discriminatory merit-based remuneration policies; they promote plans for the development and enhancement of women's skills and careers and stand out for the presence of women in managerial or top positions; they foster a culture of gender diversity.

The initiative is confirmed as an important event for the attraction and enhancement of Italian entrepreneurial excellence: in the five editions, the stories of over 3,300 companies have been collected, distributed throughout Italy, of which approximately 500 reached the final stage. With the 2021 edition, 10 companies will be rewarded for the excellence of the policies implemented in favour of gender equality.

Intesa Sanpaolo and the offer dedicated to female entrepreneurship

Intesa Sanpaolo's commitment to contributing to the diffusion of a meritocratic and inclusive culture and to enhancing the role of women in the socio-economic context is also expressed through a series of new initiatives aimed at strengthening the range of services offered to female entrepreneurs: a range of services, products and facilities aimed at accompanying “female” businesses in their growth paths, enhancing their intangible assets and the factors that allow for a prospective sustainability recognised and “rewarded” by the Group in its assessment of creditworthiness.

The following already stand out: Business Gemma, the medium to long term loan dedicated to women's enterprises and self-employed women, which benefits from the Guarantee Fund for SMEs and from the suspension of the principal portion of the instalments for up to one year; mamma@work, the loan with advantageous conditions for working mothers, including self-employed women, which supplements the funds available to help reconcile professional life and family commitments; and Welfare Hub, the service with which enterprises can increase the personal and family well-being of their employees, thanks to access to a digital platform where you can spend your “welfare credit” choosing from goods and services in the areas of greatest interest (home and family, health and well-being, savings and leisure).

Support for gender equality is now enriched by a dedicated line of the S-Loan (Sustainability Loan), successfully launched a few months ago and dedicated to the achievement of improvement objectives on environmental, social and governance (ESG) sustainability issues. The mechanism of the new line of financing provides for a rate discount for enterprises that make sustainable investments, with a particular focus on initiatives aimed at promoting equal gender opportunities and, in particular: the promotion and activation of initiatives, programmes and good practices dedicated to facilitating and improving women's participation in the community; the activation of initiatives aimed at promoting the female employment rate in the company; the definition and implementation of internal policies aimed at guaranteeing gender equality in the company context; and the introduction of company welfare programmes for female employees.

The Intesa Sanpaolo Group also provides, in collaboration with Intesa Sanpaolo Formazione and the University of Turin, the “Women Skills Academy. Women in Leadership”: an advanced training course focused on female leadership and specifically dedicated to enterprises led by women - in particular those operating in contexts with predominantly male interlocutors - in order to support them in the process of structural reinforcement and orient them towards sectors with an increasingly more innovative content. The goal is to build knowledge on financial education and strengthen leadership, skills, networking, communication and negotiation skills. The course was offered to 35 female entrepreneurs, selected from the finalists of the Women Value Company award.

This initiative stems from the consideration that the health and economic crisis caused by Covid-19 has put women-owned businesses in particular in crisis. After six years of steady growth, the Observatory on Women's Entrepreneurship of Unioncamere and InfoCamere recorded the first setback in 2020: just a -0.29%, equal to almost 4,000 fewer activities compared to 2019, and yet a sign that goes against the trend.

The reasons lie in the fact that the sectors in which women are traditionally more present remain commerce, tourism, personal assistance and, among the manufacturing activities, textiles: precisely the activities most affected by the pandemic, which seems to have brought to light a sort of structural weakness of female entrepreneurship, not so much in terms of terminations as in terms of gross birth rate.

Inclusion and the development of female talent in Intesa Sanpaolo

Intesa Sanpaolo's collaboration with the Bellisario Foundation in the Women Value Company project is entirely in line with the attention traditionally paid by the banking group to the issue of gender equality and inclusion, both as a company and in its institutional activities.

In terms of equal opportunities and inclusion, Intesa Sanpaolo, which has created a dedicated internal structure reporting to the Chief Operating Officer, over the years has equipped itself with concrete and effective tools that have enabled the Bank to have today a larger number of women (54%) than men and to be well positioned as female Executives (27% compared to the Italian female executive average of 17.6%), as Managers (40%, including Executives and Middle Managers) and as Branch Managers (40%). In order to enhance female talent and encourage the creation of inclusive working environments, a specific KPI (management objective) has been introduced to reward managers who pay attention to gender equity and a number of development initiatives for female professionals and managers (job rotation, shadowing courses, training for female empowerment, career acceleration programmes, etc.). A section of the document “Principles for Diversity & Inclusion” - the policy approved in 2020, which sets out policies and actions for inclusion towards all forms of diversity and is based on respect for all people, meritocracy and equal opportunities, identifying concrete commitments and behaviours - is given over to gender equity commitments in the area of recruitment, promotions to manager, appointments to senior management and the succession plan for top management. The integrated welfare system has evolved over the years, with a wide range of solutions - e.g. the time bank, company crèches, extended maternity/paternity leave, smart working, flexible entry/exit times, part-time work - that concretely address the issue of time management and the balance between the business and personal needs of employees.

In addition to the well-established initiatives with the Marisa Bellisario Foundation, Intesa Sanpaolo also stands out for its numerous collaborations that promote gender equality, so much so that it is the first bank in Italy and one of the first in Europe to have received the Gender Equality European & International Standard (GEEIS-Diversity), an international certification issued by the Arborus association through Bureau Veritas and aimed at assessing the commitment of organisations to diversity and inclusion. The evaluation process examined data, staff processes, policies and action plans with a focus on the consequentiality between listening activities, initiatives and projects carried out and the monitoring of results.

Intesa Sanpaolo is included on the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index 2021 (GEI) with a score well above the global financial sector average and in the Diversity & Inclusion Index of Refinitiv, an international index that selects the 100 most inclusive and diversity-conscious companies in the world listed on the stock exchange; it has also been recognised by Equileap Research in the top 5 of the FTSE MIB 40, in the 2020 Gender Equality in Spain, Italy and Greece ranking. The Bank has also adhered to the Women's Empowerment Principles - WEPs promoted by the UN and subscribes to the ABI (Italian Banking Association) Charter “Women in banking”.

Intesa Sanpaolo

Media Relations

Banca dei Territori Media and Local Media

stampa@intesasanpaolo.com

www.intesasanpaolo.com/it/news

Marisa Bellisario Foundation

Communication Manager - Marina Abbate

Tel. +39 06.85357628 – 338.2910401

m.abbate@fondazionebellisario.org