Gino Cocchi, who retired at the age of 70, set up a successful start-up. One that not even Covid was able to stop.
(Clicca qui per leggere la versione in italiano/ Click here to read the Italian version)
This is a story for those who say that Italy is a dead country, that there is no way out of this crisis, that moving abroad is the only hope for young Italians, that they cannot wait to retire, and so on and so forth. This is the story of Gino Cocchi, an industrial technician who was born in Bologna on 11 September 1940. He retired in 2010 and we imagine that he had a very good pension as he had worked as CEO of a major company until age 70. But instead of enjoying such a large pension, he founded his own start-up, which has grown into a group that currently employs 500 people and that will increase to 550 next year, of whom three-quarters are engineers and half are under the age of 35, from 29 different countries: this speaks volumes when it comes to hiring young people and integration.
But do you know what happened to this man who two years ago, at age 70, instead of just retiring, decided to start a start-up company, hired 500 people, half of whom under the age of 35, and so on and so forth? Covid, just like everybody else. And business started going down, or rather, drying up. So what did he do? Did he start whining and cursing his bad luck, China or Minister of Health Roberto Speranza? Not at all: at age 80 he transformed the company, which now makes more money than before. And even has more employees than before. This is not to adulate Mr Gino Cocchi, an industrial technician turned industrialist (and even professor of Strategy and Innovation at the University of Ferrara): this is to say that, luckily, Italy is full of people like Cocchi. It is full of entrepreneurs (but not just entrepreneurs) who do not give up when faced with obstacles and who, more simply, realise that we are all very much the architects of our own destiny.
Gino Cocchi’s start-up, which has grown into a group of 13 companies operating in three sectors (automated machines, airport technology, science), now offers services for areas such as administration and finance, budget, human resources, and information technology. Called Aretè & Cocchi Technology, it is based in Crespellano, a small town in the province of Bologna that used to be a municipality until 2014, when it merged into the new municipality of Valsamoggia. Gino Cocchi had a totem installed at the entrance featuring the values that everyone working there should be inspired by: from passion to simplicity, from being able to work as a team to the ability to tackle new challenges. ‘I was born in an area in which people grow up on bread and salami and are into mechanics. I got my diploma as an industrial technician and I then joined the Italian Air Force as second lieutenant. I was assigned to a research and experimentation centre where I had the chance to nurture my passion for technology and physics. It was the early 1960s. The time of the first space launches.’
The early 1960s. The years of record GDP growth. The time when the Italian lira received an award. The last few light-hearted and joyful years. Gino Cocchi joined the company Sassi in 1962, which manufactured lifting machines, or rather lifts: just like the one of ‘cretinetti’, the character played by Italian actor Alberto Sordi in the Italian comedy Il Vedovo, directed by Dino Risi. The Velasca Tower. Industrialists who make money and create employment; and those who fail to do so, such as Alberto Sordi’s ‘cretinetti’ who is hoping to inherit his wife’s money to avoid being left behind in the economic boom. The first crisis for those Italians hit in 1964 and Alberto Sassi, the founder, was desperate. But we pulled through. That is when I came to realise that we have always had crises and will continue to have them, but that they can always be overcome. It wasn’t a big company, it employed 120 people. I had decided to focus on studying languages: English, French, German and Spanish. In this way I would be able to travel the world, meet new people and learn about new cultures. I became an executive. I was well regarded, but at some stage in 1970, eight years later, I felt I had to try something new. By 1969 I had also started studying Russian. I wanted to learn new things. ‘Poerio Carpigiani, who in 1944 had set up Carpigiani, a leading manufacturer of ice-cream making machines, approached me. He told me that he was purchasing a company, Cattabriga, from the court of Bologna, which had been the first in the world to build automated ice-cream making machines, but that it was going bankrupt. The company was old and practically dead, and had about 10 employees. Carpigiani told me: ‘I’m looking for a young guy who is able to anticipate the future. By this point my managers think that they have conquered the world, and that they have nothing left to discover and learn. I would like you to take the helm of Cattabriga and give it a new lease of life.’ I knew absolutely nothing about ice-cream making machines. But I accepted just the same. Leaving certainty for uncertainty. We set out with nothing, but we brought Cattabriga back to life. We began to hire young people. We set up a sales network consisting of 100 agents. We participated in as many trade fairs as we could. The blissful years had come to an end, the 1970s were tough years due to the political climate, filled with tensions, terrorism and fear. And I must say that universities were also letting everyone graduate with minimum marks… We had to come up with our own training. When I left the company after 20 years in 1990, Cattabriga was generating revenues of 30 billion lire. And was making a profit.’ In 1990, Gino Cocchi joined Carpigiani, the parent company that had changed hands in the meantime. ‘Its founder, Poerio, had died in 1982, and the new owners, the Ali group, were looking for someone who was familiar with the environment. They asked me to head the group. I was appointed CEO.’ Gino Cocchi was at the helm of the Carpigiani Group for 20 years. After modernising the company, boosting its global market share from 17% to 50% in just a few years, he retired in 2010.
He was 70 years old and it was time to enjoy his retirement. But what motivates an entrepreneur to start a business? A desire to make money? Were it only for the money, many entrepreneurs would invest the money they already have in finance, instead of taking a gamble. The reason people start a business is to achieve something of their own, something that serves the entire community. Well, this is true for those with good intentions. I was 70 years old and I wanted to accomplish something of my own, something that could be only mine. I had already bought a company, CT Pack, back in 1995, and I had left management in charge of the business. Then in 2010 I set up Aretè & Cocchi Technology.’ Things were going well and, in 2019, it was generating orders worth €150 million per year. But then Covid came along. In 2020, orders dropped to 100 million. ‘We had to resort to furloughs, but we didn’t lay anyone off. We reinvented ourselves. We changed a lot of things. We developed all kinds of new technology. We relied on artificial intelligence that could do things that we used to do in person. For instance, we invested in Google glasses, which let us control the machine we are working on all the way from the other side of the world. We also tried to get rid of the non-essentials. This is where my peasant background came in handy, along with my ability to grasp what is essential, that is, thrift, an ancient and forgotten value. In other words, we have changed. It was a change triggered by difficulties and that brought about innovation.’
In 2021, orders increased to almost the same amount as in 2019 (€140 million) and, in 2022, we reached €180 million: Which would have gone up to 200 if the war had not resulted in us losing 20 million in orders with Russia. We expect to exceed 200 million in 2023. The thing I am most proud of is that we devote more than 10% of our revenue to research and development. I want the company to do well even in 20 years’ time.’ And what does this man, who experienced the fabulous ‘60s, the gloomy ‘70s, the illusory ‘80s, the difficult ‘90s when the First Italian Republic collapsed, followed by the post 9/11 crisis, the 2008 crisis, the Covid crisis and the Ukraine war crisis, think of the pessimism prevailing in Italy today?
‘I believe that we are in fact going through unusual and difficult times, and this is due to at least six factors that have played out rapidly, one after the other. 1) Covid 2) the lack of raw materials 3) the energy crisis 4) war 5) inflation 6) the risk of de-globalisation, since we are going back to a world that is split up into at least two parts, East and West… So there are some real issues. But I think that if you are running a business you need to be able to grasp and understand what kind of activities have potential going forward. There are plenty of entrepreneurs in Italy who have this skill. Italian genius is unrivalled worldwide. ‘But our country is curious: we are really good at getting ourselves hurt. And at self-deprecation too. While it is true that, in some respects, our country is in disarray, it is also true that we have one of the worst bureaucracies: yet we are so much better than the image we want to portray. Even our schools are better than we make them out to be. The South is better too. Look, we have extremely good research centres in the South of Italy. I was born when World War II was just starting and I grew up in the post-war period, and you know what? Looking back at what I have achieved, I thank God, but I am also thankful that I was born and raised in troubled times. My homeland, Emilia, was left with nothing after the war. We were extremely poor. And we had great ideological conflicts: not like the ones seen in Italian comedy films such as those with Don Camillo and Peppone, but the situation was much grimmer. And yet some people were hopeful. And a desire to accomplish. Nowadays, when it comes to GDP and exports, the Emilia-Romagna region leads the way in Italy and that is because, in those days, people believed in the future. That is exactly Italy’s biggest mistake nowadays: leading people to believe there is no hope for the future.’
Il Foglio quotidiano, 6 February 2023 – Michele Brambilla