Corporate Italy lacks female CEOs, stock exchange head warns

“Last year we probably reached the lowest level of female CEOs leading listed companies at Milan’s Stock Exchange,” said Claudia Parzani, chairman of Euronext NV’s Borsa Italiana SpA, at the Bloomberg New Voices event on Tuesday. 

She warned the country needs to attract new talent, including qualified women. Italy needs to focus on the “human factor” in the age of AI, she added.

Parzani is also a senior adviser at Linklaters LLP law firm and a non-executive director at carmaker Stellantis NV.

Speaking about capital markets in Italy, Parzani highlighted the importance of making the market more attractive to smaller and medium enterprises. “We are working on something that is important, that is the liquidity of the market, especially for smaller companies, and enlarging as much as possible the category of institutional domestic investors.” 

Still, she said the market windows for initial public offerings aren’t always available and placed Italy as lagging behing competing markets such as France and Germany.