Professional, enterprising, fierce commitment towards continuous innovation. These were the distinctive qualities of Aldo Villa, the first president of the Italian Ceramic Company and general manager of Sacmi for years, who the prestigious honour is named after. The award - that has now reached its 12th edition – is designed to recognize those who have distinguished themselves by outstanding commitment to ambition, impact and excellence. For the individual’s ability to look to the future and pave the path for technological innovation: just like Aldo Villa, who played a forefront role in the group’s extraordinary growth, developing from a small mechanical workshop to a world leader in the production of technology for the ceramic industry, as well as for the beverage, packaging, plastics sectors in a continuous business diversification process.
This year Sacmi will host the award ceremony that the commission has proudly assigned to Mr. Franco Stefani, founder of System in Fiorano Modenese, who through his outstanding skills was able to develop a business group which, today, is a premier worldwide provider of avant-garde technology for the ceramic field and electronic and logistics solutions. Stefani, a name added to the list of eleven award winners of previous editions, from Adriano Bossetti (Siti spa) to Alex Muller and Georg Bednorz (researchers at the Ibm center in Zurich), from Romano Minozzi (Iris Ceramica) to Philip Rosenthal (Rosenthal AG), from Leopoldo Cini (honorary president of the Italian Ceramic Company) to Josè Soriano Ramos (Porcelanosa). Up to the last few editions that recognized Vittoriano Bitossi (Colorobbia), Filippo Marazzi (Marazzi group), Carlo Palmonari (CenCerBo managing director) and Ibrahim Bodur, the last person to have received the award “for his extraordinary carrier as a businessman in the ceramic field” starting from Çanakkale Seramik, founded in1957 in the Turkish province with the same name.
Franco Stefani will be honoured with the 12th Aldo Villa award on September 19 in the auditorium at Sacmi Imola. The group’s top executives will attend the event, from the board of directors to Pietro Cassani, general manager of the group to Claudio Marani, general manager of the Sacmi Ceramics division. Discussions about ceramic decorations presented by Andrea Bresciani (Sacmi R&D manager), Davide Medici (Intesa general manager) and Andrea Avallone (Sacmi Forni general manager) will follow. Lastly Tandean Rustandy will speak about the “Arwana case”, a type of best practice to show how the financial crisis can also translate into an extremely large opportunity for the most solid companies that consider technological innovation as the key to success. The actual award ceremony will begin at 5:00 pm when, after the introduction by Paolo Zannini (current president of the Italian Ceramic Company) and Domenico Olivieri, president of Sacmi, the founder of System will receive the prestigious award. Pietro Cassani, president of Acimac and Franco Manfredini, president of Confindustria Ceramica, will close the ceremony.