Marisa Bellisario
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Italian executive who, from 1981, turned the state telecommunications manufacturer Italtel from what the press called a national scandal into a profitable company, and whose planned merger into a group of European scale was cancelled, her foundation records, because a partner would not have a woman as chief executive.
She came up through Olivetti in its electronic years, went to America in 1965, ran Olivetti's American company from 1979 and repaired its balance sheet, and in October 1980 accepted the state holding's offer of the hardest job in Italian industry. Italtel had six plants, twenty-nine thousand employees, very low productivity, high absenteeism and heavy losses; the press called it a nightmare and a national scandal, and she wrote later that it was worse than described. Co-general manager from the start of 1981, sole managing director from that August, she replaced the management, started new projects, and carried the plan through against the unions and part of the press. In three years turnover went from 503 billion lire to 1,300 billion, with a substantial profit, and the share of women among the company's graduates went from five per cent to twenty-seven. The merger with Fiat's Telettra that would have made an Italian equipment group of European scale did not happen; the foundation that bears her name states plainly that Fiat would not give her the chief executive's chair because she was a woman, and that the sector's growth stalled with it. She died in office in August 1988, at fifty-three. The Italtel entry records what became of the company; this is the person who gave it the decade it had.
Also known as: bellisario, italtel turnaround, telit
Sources
- Treccani, Dizionario Biografico: in October 1980 Bellisario left Olivetti to become co-general manager of Italtel, the largest Italian manufacturer in telecommunications, with six plants and 29,000 employees, afflicted by very low productivity, organisational inefficiency and high absenteeism - described by the press as a case unique in Europe, a nightmare, a national scandal, and worse than described, by her own later account; the turnaround was backed by a political mandate from the new minister for state holdings and framed by the ten-year telecommunications plan of 1981-90
- Italian Wikipedia: Maria Isabella Bellisario, Ceva 9 July 1935 to Turin 4 August 1988; remembered for the restructuring of Olivetti Corporation of America and Italtel; president of Olivetti's American company from January 1979, restoring its balance sheet; returned in 1981 to lead Italtel, a state-controlled group of thirty electromechanical companies and about thirty thousand employees, in grave crisis; her plan of new projects and replaced management raised turnover from 503 billion lire to 1,300 billion in three years, with a substantial profit
- Fondazione Marisa Bellisario: a merger of Italtel with Telettra, Fiat's telecommunications company, was to have produced Telit, a large Italian telecommunications group, but the deal was cancelled because Fiat would not give her the role of chief executive because she was a woman; the foundation records that this halted the growth of the Italian sector; when she began at Italtel women graduates were 5 per cent of the company's graduates and within a few years the share was 27
- Storia Olivetti: in October 1980 she accepted STET's proposal to run Italtel; co-general manager from the start of 1981 and sole managing director from August 1981; the restructuring required courageous choices carried through against the scepticism, and at times the opposition, of the unions and part of the press
- Il secondo mestiere: she died in Turin on 4 August 1988 of bone cancer, leaving her husband Lionello Cantoni, met in her early Olivetti years; the foundation named for her and its annual prize for women who stand out in their work were created in 1988