After eight weeks, the second edition of the project developed by EssilorLuxottica together with La Scuola d’Italia, the Future Leaders Porgram: a path that put students in the rare condition of measuring with the reality of the world of work before entering.
The final day – made of presentations, evaluations and awards – was only the culmination of a deeper work, built week after week through a direct exposure to the mechanisms of a large global company. A context that required students to think, structure and communicate as if they were already within that world.
Fabrizio Uguzzoni, President, Americas Professional Solutions by EssilorLuxottica, who opened the day immediately moved the focus from the result to the path: “If you are here today, you have already won. ” Over the weeks, students have had access to the ability to look closely at how a company really works. From product construction to distribution, through marketing, retail and research, the program returned a complete vision. An experience that serves so much to understand what you want to do as to clarify what you prefer to avoid.
The attention then focused on the presentations of the boys, whose quality has made the judges an exciting challenge in choosing the winner.
Alfonso Cerullo, President of LensCrafters and For Eyes at EssilorLuxottica Group, intervened to open the award stage, stressed the excellent level of the work presented, focusing with particular warmth on the value of the partnership with La Scuola d’Italia, who has been able to offer students a unique experience in such a delicate and formative phase of their journey. His hope is that this opportunity could give them authentic inspiration for the professional choices that await them. Cerullo has finally drawn a direct line between the project and the mission of Gruppo EssilorLuxottica — Empowering Humans — recognizing in the formation of future generations a fundamental pillar for achieving this goal.
Anthony Martire, Head of School of La Scuola d’Italia Guglielmo Marconi in New York, has summarized the experience clearly: “Experience is the gateway to true learning. ” Students worked closely with mentor, asked questions, questioned approaches and logic. They have, in short, actively participated in a process, developing a more autonomous form of thinking and, in some cases, already oriented to the business.
For Chiara Parisi, Executive Vice President of Human Resources by EssilorLuxottica, a different but complementary element emerges: the human value of the path. The construction of relationships, the work shared over time, the creation of a dynamic that goes beyond the project itself. Not by chance, in the final day, he stressed how that daily presence would be missing.
Chiara Samiolo, Sr Manager Talent Acquisition of EssilorLuxottica, directly involved in the operational coordination of the program, stressed how evident, week after week, the evolution of students: not only in the quality of ideas, but in the way of asking questions, increasingly structured and targeted.
Working on a category like that of wearables allowed students to confront an unexplored terrain. And this has made an interesting dynamic emerge: when there is no default response, there is much more to the way in which reasoning is built.
The final presentations of the four teams were real pitches, built on market logic, targeting, positioning and sustainability. Structure, language and synthesis capacity have returned a level of maturity that surprised even those who, that type of presentation, face it daily.
The victory of the Meta Ray-Ban Display team has rewarded the ability to go further, work on detail and effectively interpret consumer insight. But all groups have shown that they have understood the context, developed a vision and translated that idea into a structured project.
With the Future Leaders Program, EssilorLuxottica opens its internal dynamics to students, accepts comparison and exposes itself to an external look. At the same time, the Italian School demonstrates the desire to go beyond the traditional perimeter of training, introducing a preparation for the next step: the world of work. The result is a strengthening of the relationship between training and work, for the benefit of students who not only carry a project, but learn an approach that gives them awareness, concreteness and skill easily reusable.
L’articolo Over the project: eight weeks with EssilorLuxottica proviene da IlNewyorkese.
