I am Mauro De Rita, today’s OE Global Sales Director of Industrie Saleri Italo S.p.A. In 2000, I graduated in Engineering Management at the University of Brescia, and in 2007 I got an EMBA at the MIP, the Business School of the Polytechnic University of Milan.

Today I manage the Global Sales of the OEM sector, the market analysis and the related strategic planning. I am responsible for the P&L sales plans, the development of new markets, the definition and monitoring of the sales target and for the OEM forecast and budget activities. I manage a Key Account Managers team, Customer Service Coordinators and Market Specialists that actively work in order to achieve the mentioned sales targets both concerning the consolidated business and the strategic medium/long-term one.

The one in Saleri has not been my first professional experience. Right after my Graduation, I started working for an American multinational corporation active in the Automotive, Industrial and Aerospace fields, as a Process Engineer first, and as a Purchasing Manager afterwards.

I came in Saleri during the middle of 2003 and I immediately started taking care of all the Sourcing & Procurement activities of the Company as a Purchasing Director, until the middle of 2017. A year and a half ago, the Company asked me to become the OE Global Sales Director, the position I currently hold. “Holding a position” is not a thorough term since it makes me think of a static role. In reality, it is the complete opposite: the Automotive world is extremely dynamic and in continuous evolution, influencing – often exponentially rather than increasingly – the technological and anthropological evolutions of the consumers and final users.

The adjective “Global” confirms how responsibilities are directly proportional to the dimension of our core business and the production of cooling system and thermal management solutions for the main automotive industry players.

My long-lasting experience in Saleri clearly makes me a privileged observer, a witness of the organizational development and change in mentality of the company, concerning the technological evolution, the production and also the management: from being a family-owned company, to become an institution with an important managerial connotation.

The 190 employees and 32 M€ turnover at my arrival in 2003, made way for a progressive and effective growth, even if extremely demanding for the stakeholders and for the whole Company. Today, Saleri counts almost 500 employees and a constantly expanding 159 M€ turnover. The last 15 years heavily affected the Automotive market and Saleri had to structure its organization even more in order to cope with the challenges of this revolution – mainly cultural – learning to think like our clients do, and harmonizing and synchronizing our internal dynamics to theirs in order to design, produce and sell, looking at a wider and further goal. All this without lose sight of who we are and what we do.

The change in mentality has also affected the area I directed until a year and a half ago, and obviously the one I am currently taking care of: ten members of a team that deals with the client from the strategic point of view, to the potential business development, to the negotiation but also the daily customer and business operations. Social skills are the qualities we attentively require. It is about a natural attitude that gets sharpened day by day and that the experience transform into a natural skill, which today is even more essential since our clients are worldwide, and Saleri needs to carry within itself the features of a global footprint player. The other essential component is the knowledge of what we sell. The care of the details goes from the product to the process, to the components, to the quality of the supply chain, to the construction of the costs of the final product that will lead to the presentation and discussion of an offer and dedicated business plan.

For this reason, the internal communication is a key-factor: in our team, every member is informed and knows any other member’s work. And the same goes for all the other company areas, that are looking for a continuous flow of information in order to grow a new shared knowledge. This also makes the Company a living and always growing organism. Work is not only seen as a mere task to be carried out, but a way to witness who we are both as individuals and as Saleri members.

There are strong ethic, responsibility and passion in everything we do.