Career Path: SG Italian M&A head

For someone who loves Milan, you could say I'm very fortunate. This is where I grew up, where I've lived ever since, and where I've built a successful career.

I didn't want to be a banker from the start. As a child, my passion was always for sailing. In 1982, I passed the examination to attend the Italian Naval Academy in Livorno, but a family tragedy prevented me enrolling. I decided to stay in Milan and apply to Bocconi University instead.

Today, Bocconi is Italy's leading university for management and finance. At that time, it was up and coming. I spent five years there studying management administration, including a year out for military service. At Bocconi, I quickly decided to make my career in equities - it suits my analytical disposition - and I picked courses in financial subjects that would steer me in the right direction.

I guess I chose well, because six months before completing the course I found my first job as a research analyst for Analitica, a privately owned ratings agency with aspirations to become the Italian S&P. It was hard work: Analitica was an ambitious firm, and has since been acquired by MF, the publishing house.

I stayed there for a year and half, before leaving in search of something more dynamic. The change in the Italian financial markets at the end of the 1980s gave me the opportunity I needed. At that time brokers were looking to enter into partnerships with banks, and they needed research departments to create the right impression. I got a job as a researcher with a small and now extinct brokerage run by a Mr Pedercini and Mr Belloni.

Once again I didn't stay long: just six to eight months. After that, I left for an asset management company which was jointly owned by some of Italy's most wealthy families. It was a small place, with no more than 40 or 50 staff. I stayed for just 12 months and then moved again, in the middle of 1991, to SIGE, a subsidiary of the IMI Group and at that time, considered the real competitor of Mediobanca in the corporate banking business.

This time I stuck around: the next decade was spent at IMI. I started as an equity analyst and was fortunate to be involved in some of the big privatisations of 1992. I helped write the Green Book on the privatisation process for the Italian Treasury.

While I was at IMI, I made the move from analysis into M&A. It was a good place to learn. At that time IMI was dominant in Italian equity capital markets business, and we were the first choice for many large Italian corporates. I learned my new trade while working closely with teams at Credit Suisse First Boston, during the privatisation of ENI group, and Morgan Stanley during the initial public offering (IPO) of Mediaset.

In 1997 a colleague and I started a new department at the IMI Group: Industry Development. We were responsible for the emerging markets business of all big Italian corporates. I spent the next few years working for the likes of ENI in Poland, and Mediaset in Argentina.

I finally left IMI in 2001. A friend of mine told me Banca Intesa were looking for someone to build a new M&A division. They offered me the position. It was an exciting opportunity: I took a small team of four people from IMI with me, and started work.

After a year my plans were thrown slightly off course. Mr Benassi (one of the two CEOs at that time) resigned, and his replacement entered into a joint venture with Lazard for all M&A concerning large Italian corporates; we were to deal with the Italian mid- market instead.

I spent the next three years developing some great relationships with medium-sized Italian firms. They left me well placed when I moved again in 2001 to SG Corporate and Investment Bank, where I work with large Italian corporates. I have connections with most of the mid-sized feeder companies they're looking to acquire.

I never had a strategy in my career: I've always made the most of opportunities when they arose, and sought to create value for myself and the institution I worked for.

My advice to people looking to get on in Italian banking is this: be good to your colleagues and the people in your team - that way they'll be loyal and they'll work hard for you. Make the most of your personal networks, and move jobs when it suits you. Be pragmatic: there's nothing wrong with moving for money.

It will also help to get some experience internationally. I've been lucky: Milan has provided me with all the opportunities I needed. But young Italian bankers today can benefit from spreading their wings.