Simona Orsingher is an Italian executive who has developed a successful career in both Operations and Business Development, two functions that can sometimes clash within organizations.

While Operations emphasizes efficiency, cost control, and stability, Business Development focuses on growth, innovation, and revenue generation.

Finding common ground between these two functions entails developing shared goals and effective cross-functional communication, especially when dealing with short-term versus medium-term strategies.

As a professional whose career has combined both Operations and Business Development functions, Simona highlights the significance of being true to oneself, maintaining transparency, and finding a balance between rationality and emotions in professional relationships.

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TRANSCRIPT

Stephen Matini: Simona, would you mind sharing with our listeners where you grew up?

Simona Orsingher: Until the age of 18th I lived with my parents on the lake of Cuomo. The other side of the lake were the one for Alessandro Manzoni. And then I moved to Ireland for a couple of years. I lived in Dublin and then Londonderry, which is where I basically learned to speak English.

Once back, I moved to Milan for 15 years, more or less because I then found a new job. I moved first to Torino and then to Moderna for four years. And now I am back on the lake of Cuomo, but in Cuomo at the moment since 2020. So right before the pandemic. Yeah, that's my background.

So I come from the province, but then I immediately felt the need of moving into the world, meeting new people, experimenting new things, and seeing new cultures as well because the dimension of the lake was a little bit too tight for me. And even though I still have some connections in France over there, I feel like I'm a citizen in the world, not exactly a citizen of the lake.

Stephen Matini: So when people ask you where home is, you know, what do you say?

Simona Orsingher: I don't have a home, I don't have any roots. That's something that's, that really impressed me sometimes because normally you have like left the heart in your hometown; I didn’t. Probably, among all the places where I've lived, the one that I consider my home is Moderna for some reason. Because I felt so well there. I was so comfortable and I felt loved and welcomed. So if I have the chance to go back, I would run to go back to Moderna.

Stephen Matini: And when did you find out what you wanted to pursue professionally? Is this something that evolved over time? How did that happen?

Simona Orsingher: Well, it started when I had my first work experience in Milan. I used to work for some months on international company. And there I recognized that that was what I wanted to pursue. Meaning work with foreigners, speaking in English, going more and more into corporate details and understand how that type of work in general in a corporate environment would've worked and if it fit to me.

And then from there I said, and I realized, yeah, that's what I want to do. And that's what I pursued from that time going forward. So I've always stayed within corporate environments, international environments. So working like in EMEA roles or international roles rather than working just for Italy for example.

Stephen Matini: Because your professional background is really interesting. You combine two different routes. You combine the business development part and the operation part. And sometimes in companies, these two functions may not necessarily things see things, you know, eye to eye. Sometimes people get really tribal and very defensive about what they do. So how did it happen with you? How come you pursued both?

Simona Orsingher: It was like a smooth swift if I may say from operation to business development. I've always worked in functions which were in the middle, if I may say, because I started as commercial operations specialist and then move to a commercial operation manager role, ending now in a business full business development role, a global business development role.

And this happened because I think that of course you have to be in a place that encourages the teamwork between the two functions. So when we speak about supply and demand or demand and supply process, well this is something which is now very common in corporate environments. But when I started it was not that much.

So as you said, both of the functions are very defensive. So normally business development is the one who rushes rushes. We have two invoices, invoices, invoices and operation is saying, no, we can't do this, we can't do that. So like it's the Mr. No-No.

But in the end, when you work together, you understand that they can't leave without each other and they have to find a common way of understanding things. And this is where I started. So moving from operation to business development happened throughout like 15 years. So it was not something out of the blue.

I've understood working within commercial operation that I had a commercial acumen myself that I was able to discuss and negotiate with customers, even if I was formally working within operation.

And in my previous role, I realized that it was not just my impression, but it was my manager's impression, it was customer's impression. And sometimes they have specifically asked me to do, you know, negotiation and to speak about business.

So I like the fact that I had my commercial operation background when speaking to customers. So I already had in the back of my mind what could have been done and what could not have been done. So I was not over promising things to customers. I was sharing, let me say, a common success ahead because I knew where I could have been comfortable with them. So that was probably the key part of the success, which I've already used in my current role, which is the thing that ultimately led me to gain this new position as global business development manager.

Stephen Matini: It is interesting because oftentimes I describe to clients, and I mean it most of the time as some sort of joke that companies only want two things. They want to make money and they want to save money. So the making money component would be, you know, the business development part and the saving money would be the operation part. For anyone who works in a company that somehow struggle in finding a balance between these two functions, what would you say that could be a first step?

Simona Orsingher: To speak, to organize meeting and to go through each other figures and targets. Because sometimes, and if this is done on purpose, targets are done irrespectively of each function and they are done to create a sort of internal competition.

I don't agree with this way of doing because no one is going to benefit out of it. Because if commercial operation wins, then business development will lose something and vice versa. So there should be a common understanding, a common basis and common targets.

The commercial operation targets should compliment business development target and vice versa. That will be the first step to me. So meet, have a discussion on the direction we have to take together and not separately. And it's key that all the people are on board with that.

So there should be a sort of servant leadership from commercial operation and from business development because yes, it's true. Salespeople are the one who basically brings the money in, they bring the money, but they don't bring the profit. The profit is made out of what commercial operation is doing because then the cost sustained to run the operation is going to deduct from the revenue that is coming from business development. So there needs to be really a common path to follow together.

Stephen Matini: Sometimes the main problem is the fact that the leadership, the culture of the organization is very, very sales driven and sometimes can give the impression to people they are in business development, in sales, that they are the most important function, you know, and then all the other functions feel, you know, a bit resentful. So from the, from the point of view of the leadership team, what could they do in order to create a culture that is more cross-functional?

Simona Orsingher: So nowadays the quality, diversity, inclusion, it's like the flag of each company and the first, very first step they have to do towards equality, diversity, inclusion is write this. So you can't expect in a company where salespeople are considered like rocket stars and all the others are just, you know, white collar doing the job that the white collar are happy. So they have to treat both in the same way.

For example, long-term incentives or short-term incentives shouldn't be that different between business development and commercial operation or any other function in the company. In some companies there are even retreats for business development people or salespeople in general. While there's nothing for the rest of the employees, well that's not fair.

So the first step would be to treat people equally in this sense, in the way you approach them, in the way you explain thing, in the way you share your targets, the strategy and the vision. Everybody has to be on board and business development, they need to understand. And to do that, this has to start from the leadership team. So the senior VP in a company, they should start treating the salespeople the way they treat the other ones and vice versa.

Otherwise it's a sort of lead by example. You can't expect white colors and let me say non-sales people to be so happy because they're the first one to be treated not equally compared to the business developers.

Stephen Matini: And also it seems to me that, that discrepancy, that big gap becomes even wider when leadership has a very short term strategy. They have to create results right away better than thinking longevity, you know, a sustainable future in which you really have to plan everything accordingly.

Simona Orsingher: Yeah, playing a little bit ahead, let me say, I mean medium-term strategy, not that short-term strategy because of course if it's so short, well everything has to be in a rush. And then of course you want to see numbers, numbers, numbers straight away.

Stephen Matini: You said that one competency that is very, very important to do your job is the ability to build relationships. And to me you represent the perfect balance of someone who's incredibly great at organizing, numbers, but yet at the same time it has the empathy, it has the emotional intelligence to understand people. Is it possible to be really well-balanced to have both or what?

Simona Orsingher: It is possible? I think there needs to be a component which is a given. Either you have it or you don't. But some people they have it, definitely. But then you have to develop it and you have to work on it.

So a good step for me was to step back from my professional role and try always to be in the people I'm speaking to shoes, to me that's the empathy. So in the end, I'm speaking to a human being. You are a colleague, you are my manager, you are my peer, but you are a human being.

So I don't know what happened to you like one hour before we're having this conversation. Maybe you had a very bad news, maybe you're not in a good shape today. I don't know. So I always tend to be very delicate when speaking to people, even if I'm decisive and even if I always say what I need to say, I don't like to take short track or hide behind things. I think I'm transparent. And I think that transparency is something very important when it comes to business.

But on the other end, I never under evaluate the fact that we are human beings. We have emotions. Even if I believe that in professional relationship there should be always this right balance between emotion and the rational emotion are there so you don't have to a hundred percent hide item.

This is what helped me, I think. So I never took things too seriously and this is another thing in the end, it's just work. So today I'm doing this, maybe tomorrow someone will decide that I'm not useful anymore and this is the risk that I'm taking and everybody should take that. So it is just work. We are employees and this is a part of being employees. And once you do take this as a fact, I think you can work differently. But if you are expecting to be in the same role forever, if you are expecting your employer to treat you always in a very good way, well that's really the road to pain.

Stephen Matini: I agree with you. I think that bonding with people and developing relationships ultimately helps everyone overcoming any change, any difficulty. One thing that I see a lot in my job is executives, managers dealing with employees they are somehow reluctant to change for whatever the reason, you know. Sometimes people display hostility, the inability to move on. If that has ever happened to you, what would you say that is the first step to help an employee that seems to go through a difficult time and be unwilling to change?

Simona Orsingher: Well the first thing for me would be to speak to these people and understand why. And if I'm able to understand why, and if these people are telling me why, then we can decide together how to find a different path. So how to make the situation turning in their favor.

Sometimes it's possible because there is this common willingness to change things. Some other times it's not possible. So people are just reluctant to change, they're tired, they don't want to invest anymore energy or time in anything. Well at that point, if you can, you should move those people to some other roles.

If you can’t, and in the majority of cases you can’t, well you just use, even if it's not the right word to say, but in the end that's what you're doing, use them for what they're good to do. I'm very pragmatic, so I try, I give my best, but then if it doesn't work, okay, well I try to get the best out of it. That's my strategy.

In the end. I mean, we're not in school. I'm not your support teacher, okay? I'm your colleague. You are an adult. I am an adult. You always have the choice to make you're free. If you don't like a situation anymore, well just go find something else. But if you decide to stay here, well then you stay here at my condition.

Stephen Matini: Why do you think so many people seem to believe they do not have a choice?

Simona Orsingher: It's comfortable. They know they have a choice, but they don't want to choose because choose to move from something, even if this something is not good for you, but it's something that you know. So deciding to choose and move to something that you don't know ... for someone, it's unbearable. They can't do that.

I don't blame those people. I mean, we don't always have the same approach to life. But again, if you don't want to choose, well then you accept the fact that you are here at someone else condition, and you stop complaining, otherwise you leave.

I mean, things are always simpler than what we see, always simpler than what we see. So you have the opportunity to go, you are free. We're living in a country and we're living in a part of the world where you have freedom and you can really choose what you want to do. And you have the chances.

Maybe not that many chances as there might be in other countries, in Europe or in the us I don't know, in Australia, wherever. I know Italy as a place to work is not probably the best in the world. Okay, because we have a very Italian culture here, but you still can choose.

Stephen Matini: You went through a lot of professional challenges in the past. Have you ever felt that you didn't have a choice?

Simona Orsingher: I never felt that. I felt I had choices, which I didn't like because I was expecting more for me. But I never felt, I never had the choice. No, never. Because at a certain point of time I could have decided, for example, to start my own career as a freelance. That was a choice, which at that time I didn't want to do. But I never felt I had no choice.

Stephen Matini: So, I give you a scenario. Sometimes it does happen that leadership has a difficult time communicating their vision, their strategy, and to reach everyone throughout the whole company. And somehow the people, even like factory employees that don't feel included, they feel voiceless. They feel they don't have a choice. They don't matter. In order to create something that feels more synergetic in which everything flows beautifully, what would you say that they could do in order to engage everyone, including the people at the bottom, so to speak, that feel voiceless?

Simona Orsingher: Well, first of all, let me say that I don't think that they are voiceless. Maybe they feel voiceless, but they're not voiceless. We have in Italy, and I'm speaking about the experiences that I had and also my current experience, I think probably the most unionized together with France companies. So unions are very present and these people, they all have a voice.

So they're not voiceless, they feel voiceless probably because they don't speak the same language and probably because they're more focused on things which are not relevant to the one who should hear their voices.

I would suggest to speak up and continue to speak up, but not only through the unions, I would suggest and to speak up themselves, to ask these people to have a meeting, to ask their managers to organize sessions all together where they can even confront each other, but at least let their voice to be heard in a more genuine way.

Because when you have a mediator, which in this case is the union, I feel and I saw it, that sometimes the message is changed. That's probably the reason why. Then they don't feel really heard, but they have their voice. And I think that a direct channel is always the best thing. This has always worked for me.

So I have never used the unions or any other mediator. I did it by myself. And I did it truly, I did it fully because I didn't want anybody else to jeopardize the content of my message. I wanted to be, you know, true to myself first.

Stephen Matini: And from the point of view, let's say of the CEO, of the executive, you know, leadership team, what could they do in order to have a first step towards the people that may feel voiceless?

Simona Orsingher: Well, they should step down from their throne probably, 'cause some of them are really like a character somewhere in the air. So some of the senior managers are seen like this. So not even humans, but they are.

And in the end the people at the bottom, they don't even realize that the one at risk, it's not them, but it's the one on the throne. So they should probably start to communicate to these people in a more direct way.

Of course, they cannot meet one by one, but they can have exchanges with some representatives, but not the unions again, some representatives amongst the, these people at the bottom. It comes to communication, it comes to speaking.

Stephen Matini: For anyone who's interested in a career like yours that combines operations and business development. What is the advice you would give them?

Simona Orsingher: Is to be curious and ask. Ask questions. Ask to meet people. Ask to introduce yourself. Ask to go out and visit a customer. Ask to speak with colleagues from the manufacturing. So you have a 360 view of what is going on, how things are working. So you need to know bits and pieces of everything because when you are in front of a customer, you represent your company. So you can't allow yourself to say to a customer, well, I don't know. Well, you should know. And if you don't really know, genuinely don't know, you are very professional and you say, well, let me check this out because I'm not sure and I don't want to provide you with the wrong information. That should be the right approach. And always let your voice to be heard. So speak up if there is something that is not letting you feel uncomfortable when say it to your manager, speak.

Because if you don't do it, nobody will ask your opinion. Nobody, you have to sponsor yourself because there won't be anybody who will help you. And you have to count on yourself only. That's what I have learned.

I had good managers, I had great managers, I must say, and I've learned from some of these people. But in the end, they gave me the, the tools, but it was me using those tools. It was not them. And this is the approach that I'm expecting from people working with me. So I don't have to, you know, spoon feed them at 40 years old. No, but still I see this adult people who need to be spoon fed.

Stephen Matini: Simona, in your experience, what you just described, the importance of really courage, speaking up, developing relationship. Have you ever noticed gender to play any role in this dynamic?

Simona Orsingher: Yes. Well, first of all, you have to be aware that if you speak up, there might be consequences. Because if you are always transparent as I am, sometimes you say things that the people you are speaking to might not like. And if this person happens to be someone higher in your organigram, it might cost you something and it cost it to me. I'm okay with that because I want to remain true to myself.

Going back to your question, there is a difference because normally when a male colleague approached a meeting, a discussion, speaking up and even raises, raising the tone of his voice or the volume of his voice, that was accepted somehow because it's expected. Because it's a way to show your power, to show your confidence.

When it's a woman doing that, still for what I've seen, it's perceived as oh, Jesus, she's having like a crisis. She's nervous today. It's not the right day for her. Well, it was not even the right day for him, but it was not noticed.

So it's not because maybe I'm raising the tone of my voice, which normally I don't. Okay, but let me say, I'm changing the way I speak. So if I am nervous or or if I am upset, you will notice it, okay? Because I'm not, as I'm speaking right now, I would be different, but it's because I'm saying something that I really care about. It's exactly the same for a male colleague. But there is still this difference, definitely.

Stephen Matini: And yet so many women when they get at this point, they feel that they have to mimic their male counterparts in order to have a voice. So the question would be, what is the right voice for a woman?

Simona Orsingher: The right voice for woman is being calm and say the things supported by facts and data. I mean, expecting the other people, well, even not to listen to you, but that's how it's going.

And definitely not mimic your male colleagues because I don't want to be like my male colleagues. I am not them. I'm completely different. I have my own personality and I don't like to raise my voice if I want you to hear my opinion. I want to stay calm and normally I do. So that's how women should behave because if you mimic one male colleague, well in the end you will always be remembered by a copy of someone and not something new.

Stephen Matini: And what you just described probably could become a point of reference also for male executives.

Simona Orsingher: Yes, it should be. So if you think about the personal assistants, and let me say the executive assistants. 95%, even more of the cases are women, and 95% of senior managers are men and men, so these senior managers are relying on women to do their job.

The relationship they're having with other peers, with customers, maybe with the board. so, with, you know, VIP people. And some of the cases, these relationships are led by the executive assistants because she's the one who has to manage tension, manage missed appointments, manage a change of schedule.

So dealing with some people who are maybe upset because the CEO changed his mind at the last minute, and she is the one who is managing this set situation or difficult situation with customers or peers or whoever is going to meet the CEO. But nobody's thinking about it, I think.

Stephen Matini: Have you ever heard the saying behind a great man is always a great woman?

Simona Orsingher: Yes.

Stephen Matini: Okay, let's update it. Let's upgrade it. What would you say?

Simona Orsingher: A great woman can only manage a great man. So I would of course place the woman on the spotlight and not the man, because in the end, even if she's in the backstage, she's the one doing the job.

Stephen Matini: Well, maybe I'm thinking could be behind a great person, there's a great person.

Simona Orsingher: Yes, we are speaking about people, we're not speaking about women or men, but as a woman, well, I must say that we're still far behind in Italy. So this topic is very sensitive to me.

Stephen Matini: I'm not a woman and I will never understand fully what it means, but when I hear what you said, it really makes me boil inside. It feels so unfair. It really feels incredibly unfair.

Simona Orsingher: I don't even remember in how many meetings I was and I was the only woman in there and I felt like really invisible and men even took the liberty of speaking like if I was not even there. And it was perfectly normal to them.

And the sad thing is that for some women is normal this way, but it's not. So if we really want to move on on this, we have to break this. And women first, they need to have the courage and to be brave enough to speak up even in this situations like saying in a meeting like this, hello, I'm still here with you. Can you please stop?

Stephen Matini: Well, first of all, I think any organization should have a Simona and I truly mean it. I have not worked with all my podcast guests, but you and I, we had that opportunity and I really truly believe that everyone should have someone that tells you as it is, you know, with kindness the way you do, because it's just wonderful. So we talked about bunch of stuff. If you had to point out one that you believe our listeners should pay attention to, out of our conversation, what would that be?

Simona Orsingher: To be true to yourself? Always. It's you. It's good the way you are. It's not your problem if everything around you is not as you were expecting. In the end, even if you are going through challenges, difficulties, redundancies, promotions, whatever, it's just you.

And you have to stay strong because inside yourself, that's what I keep on repeating to myself every day, I have a value, okay, never mind what I do, what I'm doing now and what people think, I know that I am worth. So that's the thing that I would like to, to say to people.

And just today, I saw a post on LinkedIn, I follow the Female Quotient, which is an organization sponsoring of course females around the world. And there was Simone Biles, the gymnast, the us and gymnast. And she did something which is extraordinary last week because she did like a jump, which normally is done by men.

And so she was asked, so you are the first Michael Phelps of or Usain Bolt of, and she said, no, I'm the first Simone Biles doing this. And that was something that impressed me because that's exactly the sense of what I've said. It's you, it's just you.

So you have to stay true to yourself because especially in corporate environments, almost everything is fake, because we are all on a big stage. All of us, we're all singing our song. Sometimes you have, you are in the top 10, some other times you are at the bottom of the chart, but everyone more or less get the chance to sing the song. So everybody has to, you know, show up and try to do its best. But in the end, you have to really take care of yourself because nobody else will do it. Nobody else.

Stephen Matini: Simona, you are a jewel. Thank you so much for sharing all of these insights. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Simona Orsingher: Thanks to you Stephen.