Ten years after the spontaneous compensation given to savers caught up in the Lehman Brothers crisis, Banca Mediolanum chairman Ennio Doris recounts the company's and his family's commitment to people, the environment and society.
It is the story of a family success built on deeply rooted values and principles that Ennio Doris, together with his children Massimo and Sara, retraced on 22 October last in Milan, at the press conference organised by Banca Mediolanum on the theme of sustainability. A wide-ranging and interesting discussion, which also involved economist Enrico Giovannini (chairman of Asvis) and Oscar di Montigny, the bank's director of innovation, sustainability and value strategy, as well as author of the book Il tempo dei nuovi eroi and the blog Riflessioni per il terzo millennio "in which he investigates and analyses how the mega-trends of the future will shape new social and market scenarios". The event offered an insight not only into the company's Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, but above all into the value heritage with which its chairman Ennio Doris has run it since its very beginnings. It was an opportunity to look beyond the bank's well-known slogans — "built around you" and "by people, for people" — through a firsthand account of the concrete actions taken over the years by its managers.
The day chosen by Banca Mediolanum for this gathering was no coincidence. Exactly ten years earlier, on 22 October 2008, chairman Ennio Doris had made an announcement destined to go down in history — not only the bank's history, but that of the global banking and financial system. At the height of the turmoil caused by the unforeseen collapse of American investment bank Lehman Brothers, which had wiped out the savings of eleven thousand Mediolanum clients, the majority shareholder publicly announced that the bank would step in and compensate them out of its own pocket. It was an act that was not required of them, and it cost the Doris family and the Fininvest group (the two principal shareholders) 160 million euros, equal to 90 per cent of that year's profits. A spontaneous act of solidarity that speaks for itself, and one that Ennio Doris chose to interpret in these words: "That event was the concrete opportunity to show everyone that we were truly different." A gesture of pure philanthropy with precise roots: "At that moment I was able to make that decision," Ennio Doris recounted with emotion in Milan, "simply because I had parents who passed certain values on to me from a very young age."
The advertisement signed by Armando Testa for Banca Mediolanum on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the compensation for the Lehman Brothers crisis:
The Lehman Brothers compensation did not remain a one-off in Mediolanum's history, as Doris himself wished to recall, recounting other counter-trend choices made over the years. Among them, the decision to forgo sixty-six million euros in revenue in order to keep mortgage rates from soaring in 2009, and the decision to pay life and accident insurance for all those clients who had not taken out a policy. "How could I one day have taken a home away from someone left disabled? I would never have done it," Doris recounted, "I realised that if 97 per cent of mortgages had no insurance coverage, the fault was mine, because I had evidently not trained my staff well enough." All decisions a world away from the stereotype of the "financial shark," and consistent instead with the role of "doctor of savings" that chairman Doris decided to take on at the start of his career: "I did not want to succeed because I was good at selling something, but because I was useful to people."
Care for the individual is the principle chosen by Banca Mediolanum to carry forward its business across all areas of activity. Chief executive officer Massimo Doris and his sister Sara Doris, chairwoman of Fondazione Mediolanum Onlus, explained how this translates into the company's day-to-day work. Massimo Doris spoke about the pillars underpinning the bank's sustainable conduct: from putting the client at the centre to supporting its own employees; from respect for the environment to responsibility towards the wider community. Building on a foundation of financial stability, Banca Mediolanum has put in place a series of initiatives aimed at achieving these goals. From the microcredit offered to those who would not otherwise meet the requirements for traditional loans, to extraordinary support for clients affected by natural disasters; from investment in technological innovation to numerous corporate welfare projects, such as a nursery for employees' children (which today accommodates 160 children) and a staff canteen that pays close attention to the production chain and quality; from the high-efficiency trigeneration plant, which covers 36 per cent of the energy requirements of the Milan 3 headquarters, to the choice of hybrid cars for the company fleet.
A crucial point within the company's strategy is staff training, as explained by Oscar di Montigny: "In a world like ours, in which a single click brings you into exponential contact with risks and opportunities, it is essential to be able to critically analyse what lies before you," said di Montigny, reflecting on the centrality of knowledge today more than ever. "As a company, we concern ourselves with increasing the knowledge, skills and sensitivity of our staff and beyond," he continued, retracing the steps that led to the founding of Mediolanum's corporate university: "When I was put in charge of training, in 2007, I proposed the project of a corporate university, which required an investment of twenty-eight million euros." A financial commitment as bold as it was far-sighted, which gave rise to the Mcu (Mediolanum Corporate University) and was not long in bearing fruit: as early as March 2013, it was recognised by the Global Council of Corporate University as the second best corporate university in the world.
"Education is the most powerful weapon in existence and it is synonymous with freedom," di Montigny continued, also speaking of companies as one of the main "drivers of change," in which people place their trust and hope more than they do in institutions or the media. "This is a pivotal moment and it offers a great opportunity to businesses. It is they who today must take on the responsibility of combining innovation and sustainability." A challenge that Banca Mediolanum has once again decided to embrace, steering a steady course towards the future. "I am at ease about the generational transition," concluded chairman Ennio Doris, "and not because of the technical knowledge my children have acquired over the years, but because of the values they learned from the time they were small."