VENICE and LONGARONE, Italy—Marcolin is kicking off its third Leadership Academy, a training project dedicated to the company’s talents and future leaders, with a session dedicated to women’s leadership. Launched in 2021, Marcolin’s Leadership Academy is a program for employees, designed to boost the convergence of individual and corporate goals. It is composed of 10 meetings, each focused on the skills and values on which Marcolin’s leadership model is based. These include openness to change, practicality, responsibility and sense of belonging. The program is currently available in Italy, on a national level, with an aim to expand worldwide.

This year, the Academy is integrating soft skills enhancement modules dedicated to women’s leadership, aiming to train leaders of tomorrow who can guide and inspire others based on the principles of equity and inclusiveness. Through these modules, the future managers will work alongside company executives and external experts, who will provide them with the tools needed to improve the skills required to lead a team and promote innovation, culture and change.

This year’s opening ceremony was set against the breathtaking backdrop of the city of Venice, with an event that brought together new talents with those from the past in a workshop and a tour of Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute and Punta della Dogana. This is the first of 10 events that will be held between November 2023 and February 2024 throughout Italy.

 
 
Sabrina Paulon, Marcolin Group HR director, said, “The Leadership Academy, and specifically this year’s run, is an integral part of a vision launched many years ago, whereby Marcolin is committed to promoting a culture of respecting differences. Diversity is a value for us and a driver of economic growth and development not only to the advantage of women, but of all the people involved. This is why we want our future leaders to be able to implement a model that embraces values rather than gender-related features.”

Diversity and inclusion is one of the key pillars on which Marcolin’s ESG corporate strategy is built. Today, 57 percent of the company’s employees are women, 43 percent of whom are senior managers. In 2022, Marcolin received the recognition “Best Employers for Women” in the eyewear industry from the German ITQF Institute, which rewarded the top 360 companies in Italy.




The Leadership Academy stands alongside the Manufacturing Academy, a professional enhancement project designed for manufacturing roles which, today more than ever, require integrating craft with technological skills. Every year, the Group offers, to its people in Italy and abroad, over 5,600 hours of training to favor an increase in productivity and in-house performance, upskilling, talent retention and employer attractiveness.