CONFERENCE AT THE CHAMBER ON THE BOOK 'PIRELLI – STORIES OF WORK'
“In many ways, Pirelli is one of the most prestigious symbols of Italian industry“. With these words, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Gianfranco Fini, opened “Stories and actualities of work in the experience of a great Italian company”, a conference that took place Wednesday afternoon at Palazzo Montecitorio, Rome, with the participation of the Honourable Sergio Cofferati, economist Jean Paul Fitoussi, the Minister of the Economy Giulio Tremonti and the chairman of the Pirelli Group, Marco Tronchetti Provera.
The conference, in which members of the political, union, culture and entrepreneurial worlds took part at the invitation of the President of the Chamber, was born of the recent publication of “PIRELLI – STORIES OF WORK. Men, machines and ideas”, a book produced by Pirelli and published by Mondadori, which covers 136 years of the company’s history, recounting the social and economic reality of the country.
‘Internationalisation’, ‘technological innovation’ and ‘moral stature’, the values of Pirelli on which President Fini paused in his introductory speech, before handing over to Marco Tronchetti Provera, chairman of the Pirelli Group, who reminded the audience at the Sala della Regina that ‘passion’, ‘sense of belonging’ and ‘competence’ have enabled Pirelli to continue to be a bearer of innovation over time.
Of an anthropological, economic and social type, the contribution of Jean Paul Fitoussi, author of one of the three prefaces of the book (the others were by the writer Erri De Luca and Antonio Calabrò, Pirelli’s director of Institutional Affairs and External Relations), remarked on how “one cannot imagine the future of the world without the wheel“, because “the wheel is an indispensable instrument that enables man to move about, like glasses are to reading”.
“An unusual book, particularly courageous, also of great usefulness“, was the comment of Sergio Cofferati, who in his speech recalled Leopoldo Pirelli as one of the most avant garde contributors to the debate on the social conflicts of industrial civilisation.
Lastly, the remarks of the Minister of the Economy, Giulio Tremonti, who directed the attention of the audience to the importance of the patrimonial account in evaluating a company, an account that gives back the historic patrimony of a company, ‘photographing’ in that way a system of values and the values themselves that its financial account does not contemplate. A sophisticated metaphor for administrators, for whom the Minister recalled how ‘competence and prudence’ are at the basis of a successful management.
The conference concluded with the wish, on the part by President Gianfranco Fini, for at least another 136 years of life for Pirelli.
An extremely important afternoon for the Group which, in the splendour of the Sala della Regina, gave voice to the work of all the Pirelliani, advocates of a model history for the economy, but also for the social and cultural life of Italy and the world.
Pirelli is the first Italian corporation in the classification of ‘Global Powers of Consumer Products’, the annual list of the 250 principal producers of consumer goods in the world compiled by Deloitte, one of the planet’s biggest companies of consultancy and review services.
Pirelli Eco Technology, the Pirelli Group subsidiary dedicated to technologies for lowering harmful emissions from diesel engines, has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Portuguese Ministries of Transportation and the Environment to test Feelpure anti-particulate filters on the public transit vehicles of Lisbon and Porto.