That business value engraved in DNA that is preserved through innovation

Amid the rippling foam of the sea off Barcelona with her hair loose in the wind on the deck of a motor yacht is a young girl holding a white notebook. From the engine room comes a shout: did you get the time? Are you sure? Then a dizzying leap and within seconds that notebook goes from the tender hand to the strong hand of an adult. Again a roar of engines, then the wake produced by speed and again a passage of the notebook this time from the adult hand to that of the little girl. It is 1987 Giovanna Vitelli is 13 years old and her father Paolo has taken her along for the final tuning of the iconic Azimut 71. Another success story of a capable and visionary entrepreneur from Turin, driven from a young age by a passion for the sea and the ambition to leave an indelible mark on Italian industry. In the Alps facing Turin at Avigliana he has already revolutionised the world of pleasure boating. Along that road he went on to make Azimut Benetti the world's leading manufacturer of megayachts. A title it still holds for the 26th consecutive year (Global Order Book 2026). That little girl, on the other hand, does not yet know that being an atypical test pilot and growing up amidst puffs of water and boats is marking her DNA. Almost 40 years later, she is at the helm of a group (president since 2023 before her father died prematurely in 2024) that has a turnover of 1.5 billion euros, six production sites, a global network of 130 service centres and over 2400 employees. A success to which Giovanna has contributed since being appointed head of the product development committee in 2011. With strong determination, she makes Italian yachting that perfect mix of design, craftsmanship, Italian genius, sustainable high technology and cutting-edge. The richest people in the world (from Ronaldo to David Bowie to Ibrahimovic) queue up to secure iconic boats that are so unique, so Italian. It is precisely her experience as an entrepreneur and manager in the high-end world that will lead her from June (the first woman in the association's history) to lead Altagamma. "I would like to bring back to the centre the founding principles of our manufacturing, of what is done well and how the concept of the team is decisive for the success of companies".

Yet Giovanna until she was almost 30 years old saw herself elsewhere in a law firm as a business lawyer. She was the only daughter of an entrepreneur who had chosen a different path from that of her family of origin (her grandfather was a textile entrepreneur) and 'as an ambitious and competitive person as I am, thanks to my excellent school results (first a diploma from the classical high school with honours and then a degree with honours in law), I didn't want to pass for 'daddy's daughter' but make my own way. I saw the idea of working in the family business as a fallback. Then I realised I was wrong'. A new graduate, she made her debut in one of Milan's top firms (BonelliErede) to deal with M&A. "I liked corporate law and it turned out to be an excellent training ground for my future because it requires detail, precision, study and analysis of the business". After five years of days and nights dedicated to work comes the big opportunity: moving to New York to one of the leading international law firms. He already has his American visa in hand with the dawn of a clear future. But her destiny lies elsewhere. "I hear dad on the phone. He was proud of my achievements (as I am today for those of my two sons) and had always pushed me to do what I liked. But he told me: I am happy for you but if you chose this path I would consider that offer to sell that I have in my hands'. At that moment, Giovanna's heart beat fast: 'I thought: well, sell, just a moment. It was then that I turned over in my mind what I had always excluded because I foolishly considered it a diminutio so I said: wait, let's talk. Within a few days I tore up my visa, said goodbye to the studio, even though I left a door open in case I had second thoughts because the father-daughter relationship is not necessarily going to work. I returned to Turin. It was the year 2004, with a company founded in 1969, Paolo, not even 60 years old (he was born in 1947), was already addressing the issue of guaranteeing a future for his creature by planning a generational transition. "Today this is the theme of Italian companies. For the time, he was a visionary if we think that there are families in which four generations live together with grandparents struggling to hand over leadership. "As founder and owner he moved, leaving me field and space in a way that was unusual for Italy at the time. We defined my path of growth (a "gavetta" without shortcuts, starting with legal, then marketing and sales) within an already structured organisation (a manager at the head of each division) with the idea that he would gradually step back. And so it was. For someone who had been a pioneer and always on the front line, it was difficult but necessary to realise a dream: to give continuity to the company'. If in the entrepreneurial field it is not easy to be a child of art when you come from someone who has expressed excellent talent, Giovanna on the other hand puts her own spin on it. Between 2007 and 2011 she passed the most difficult test, that of product innovation, the heart of the company, where it was from her mentor that she received the baton handover. Three names that have made nautical history mark this passage: Magellano, Atlantis, Benetti Oasis. Giovanna has new, different ideas, changes the dynamics of the process, creates her own team. At the umpteenth challenge when Paolo is still behind the scenes, he will tell her: I no longer have the freshness or age to see what comes tomorrow but I sense that your project will be successful. "With my father a new concept was born from a sketch drawn on a napkin between a glass of wine and the inspiration suggested by a customer. Mine is a structured, considered but above all participative way where we create together. The key to success was and is cross-pollination. It is the most beautiful moment in my work when with planners, designers, marketing experts, sales management, technicians and scientists we work to create a unique product that amazes and satisfies the owner. Every launch is an emotion. I don't know how to design, but having grown up on bread and boats I believe I know how to interpret new trends". Giovanna called the elite of Italia and international design to Avigliana: from Achille Salvagni to De Lucchi, from Bonetti Kozerski to Vincenzo de Cotiis, from Matteo Thun to m2atelier and many others all competing for the best idea. In 2019, he amazed the world when, to celebrate the company's 50th anniversary, he took an Azimut S6, an 18-metre yacht, among the skyscrapers of New York. On the other hand, the United States is the biggest market for Azimut Benetti. "But to be first in the globe for 26 years, an exceptional product is not enough. You need those ingredients that make up the DNA of this company: industrial and financial solidity, feet firmly on the ground that help you invest even when the wind is blowing, an international commercial capillarity, and above all an excellent team." Giovanna with her family has travelled the world and continues to travel to discover new markets, but when she can she retires to her Mascognaz.

It is the other precious pearl he inherited. Here is the Hotellerie de Mascognaz, a diffuse hotel that received its fifth star under his management. "Beauty, authenticity and heart. I couldn't use any other words to describe it'. An Alpine heritage destined for abandonment or transformation has been given new life thanks to Paolo Vitelli's vision and painstaking work. An ancient waltz village, made of rascard, has been recovered in its entirety and restored with absolute respect for its authenticity as the natural heritage around it, according to sustainable principles extended to energy efficiency. "Mascognaz is an ancient village that lives, breathes, welcomes. A place out of time, unreachable by your own means (in winter only by sledge and inside you move by electric vehicles), where every arrival is a small pilgrimage that prepares you for wonder. But when you are there, you put on your snowshoes and immediately you have an open-air gym waiting for you. For me it is the place of childhood memories, of family history. Of all the things I did with my father, the only activity in which I had never been interested was the hôtellerie, so with his passing I also entered this not easy world, but I was immediately passionate about it. I made it a landing place where hospitality becomes an experience while preserving its identity and without betraying its soul. I think that mountain tourism should not only be made up of ski slopes, luxurious and noisy apreski, but of walking, silence and rest. True luxury is living in a place that reconnects to a quiet time, out of the noise of the world. I would like Mascognaz to be chosen by those who love nature and reflection: a rare place, but not for an elite". The kitchen is also set on zero kilometre and only local products end up on the plate. Giovanna's next challenge is once again in the mountains in Chamonix where the group owns the oldest hotel in the country, built in 1840. "Here too, the concept is not dissimilar: to enhance the soul of a place that has made mountain and mountaineering history".