Welcome to Torino, one of the ESCP Europe Campuses

Roberto Quaglia

Director of Torino Campus

ESCP Europe Alumni '97

Welcoming a new student is a very special moment: the School adds a precious talent to its community and the student joins an environment which will support him throughout his professional life. As an ESCP Europe alumni myself, I feel a special duty to make sure you will be able to make the best of what the School and its community has to offer, in order to be successful, both professionally and personally.

The Italian ESCP Europe campus was founded in 2004 by a Development Committee of professionals and alumni, among whom were our President Daniele Ciravegna and myself. In Italy we serve both students with Masters Programs, as the Italian campus of ESCP Europe, and the business community, with a complete offer of executive education, applied research and entrepreneurship services.

Strong links with the business community are for sure one of the key characteristics of the Italian campus (over half of our activities are with the corporate world). This leads to a benefit for students, who can take advantage of the relationships of the School in the development of their academic and extra academic curricula, for example in terms of company projects, internships, applied research studies, entrepreneurial opportunities and contributions of managers and professionals during the year.

Academically, we offer you the highest international standards of ESCP Europe and its world class certifications: EQUIS, AACSB and AMBA. In particular we aim at preparing the next ruling class, a community of exceptional people trained to be capable of taking managerial decisions on behalf on their companies and institutions. With this purpose in mind, our didactics are centred on preparing you as a future decision maker in a complex economic context. This means providing you with the necessary knowledge and more importantly with the skills and attitudes required of such a role. Action learning has proven to be a powerful methodology and we adopt it as much as possible, by including in our didactics case studies and real life situations which can make you practice the role of decision-maker. This approach will be provide you with excitement and learning opportunities, but with some frustration too, as you will realise that management is not an exact science but a professional practice, in which there is no one solution to a given problem. For this reason no knowledge will be enough to enable you to take the right decisions, but rather you will need to develop the skills of a problem solver and a decision maker, who can lead an organisation in a business environment, which will be substantially different from that of today in most of its elements, except one: people. Teamwork is therefore another key element of the equation, which you will practice from your very first class.

Finally, I encourage you to enjoy Torino, Italy and your colleagues; as an alumni myself I can assure you that you will spend one of the best periods of your life.

Roberto Quaglia