The medium-sized Italian companies in the textile-fashion-accessory (Tma) chain have been committed to environmental and social sustainability for years, if not decades, often anticipating laws, regulations and even the sensitivity of the market and end customers. The third component, governance, of the famous ESG acronym – coined for listed companies – has instead been more neglected by SMEs and in some cases also by large companies, even when they are present on the stock exchange.
The surprise announcement
However, as often happens, the real country and its economy, made up precisely of SMEs, surprises positively and makes courageous choices that look to the medium and long term, rather than the (daunting) short term. This is the case of the Marche-based company Santoni, one of the European leaders in high-end footwear, which has already faced the first generational transition and is now making a further move that looks to the future of the brand, the company and the increasingly numerous people who work there. Giuseppe Santoni had been CEO since 1990 of the company founded by his father in 1975 and has just decided to entrust the operational leadership of the shoe factory (upa phase of craftsmanship) to Eraldo Poletto, a manager outside the family and with a past as managing director of Furla and Ferragamo.
The reasons for the choice
It is not a choice dictated by tiredness or age (Giuseppe Santoni is from 1968), but by the belief that the governance of family businesses can change for the better for the good of all the too often mentioned stakeholder. «I’m not taking a step backwards, but sideways, we could say: operational management, with the growth rates we have had in recent years and which we plan to maintain, I feel the need to entrust a person of great quality and experience and which I have the greatest personal and professional esteem for the closest operations, daily and beyond – explains Giuseppe Santoni -. It’s not to have more free time and to devote myself to something other than the company my father founded. Rather, I plan to free up mental energies to plan development in markets with great potential, such as the United States and China, and to identify the types of product to be developed alongside the core business of footwear».
Priority change
Giuseppe Santoni has always put direct experience and practical knowledge of every corporate aspect in first place (at 16, after school, he was already working on the cableway), but in an increasingly complex world, the approach must change. «I need to apply the same immersion method in reality that I don’t know enough, without having to worry about managing the present. I remain executive chairman, but I entrust the most operational part to Eraldo, who has been part of Santoni’s board of directors for years. I do it with great serenity and I think that all the people who work in the company, who I have always considered my extended family, understand and endorse this choice».
The growth trend of the last few years
Santoni closed 2022 with revenues of 98.6 million (+46% on 2021 and +20% on 82 million in 2019) and 2023 started at an equally sustained pace. «With Eraldo and the entire first line of managers there is full agreement on the commitment to environmental and social sustainability, from which no one thinks they can ignore. In addition to investments in clean energy, reduction of waste and emissions, in the company and in the shops – concludes Santoni – we have just launched an internal academy, to pass down artisan knowledge by making it coexist with digital and ecological changes: we are all convinced that only in this way this company can remain for a long, very long time, well beyond my personal life cycle».