Furio Colombo has lived many lives: journalist for television and print media, writer with numerous essays and novels to his credit (even with a foreign pseudonym), parliamentarian in the ranks of the center-left, director of the Unit from 2000 to 2005, columnist of the Fact Daily since its inception. In the United States he spent many years, as a correspondent for the Press and columnist for Repubblica, but also as a manager of the Fiat group and before, as a very young man, of Olivetti. In New York he directed the Italian Cultural Institute and taught at Columbia University, coming into contact with characters such as the Kennedy brothers, Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, Joan Baez, John Lennon.
Who was Cesare Romiti, whom you knew well in the United States?
He was a character who attracted attention, with a very clear cut of personality. An inclination that I don’t know whether to define authoritative or authoritarian. He certainly had authority: an instinctive ability to direct, understand interlocutors, be the leader of a group. Sometimes he became authoritarian, it was a given of his personality, but there was nothing personalized: he had a purpose – to manage the Fiat company – and he dedicated himself to it. I have seen him act with loyalty and consistency.
They called him the Doctor, but he is remembered as an “iron manager” with a very hard line with the unions. Its flaws?
There is a Romiti of which the unions and part of the workers may have unhappy memories, because he very often tended to impose what he saw as the rules and duties of the company. However, when he could have treaded the hand – because he was playing the “boss” of the time and Confindustria encouraged him to push – he didn’t make the mistake of forcing. I am thinking of the “march of the 40 thousand” of 1980 and its ability to induce both the unions and the PCI to discuss rather than tear. On that occasion he won without exaggerating.
Its main merit?
In addition to the ability not to go beyond when he would have had the power to do so, I was struck by the very strong loyalty to the lawyer, who today we would define politically as a moderate. In the US, Gianni Agnelli only met Democrats, apart from Reagan and Bush when they became presidents, and Senator Jacob Javits who was a great liberal in the ranks of the Republicans. I’ve always seen it at the Democratic convention. This approach was reflected both in the relationships within the American factories, which at the time were numerous, and in Italian life. Romiti perceived this, and I believe that Italy owes a lot to the fact that he was more interested in following the model of Gianni Agnelli than that of the Confindustria of the time.
How were your personal relationships?
We had a cordial and good friendship relationship, although he was the number one in the Fiat group after the Avvocato. There was mutual respect. With me and my wife Alice it has always been very pleasant. And it had nothing to do with work: Romiti distinguished areas in an almost military way.
Do you remember a particular aspect, an anecdote that struck you?
He was a curious example of a great manager with a strong sense of humor and an unbridled taste for jokes and jokes. He organized jokes on his friends, he invented situations in a way that made him almost famous. He did not share this space with the lawyer, in private they had different acquaintances and acquaintances. But he made a lot of jokes. For example, a friend and colleague of Romiti was terrified of cats. And he, whenever they went to visit a factory in the South or a new settlement, made sure that there was always a black cat ready to cross the road in front of his car. He enjoyed his fright, but then he transformed it into an opportunity to be together, perhaps for lunch. It is rare in a person who deals with accounts and printouts in life.
What basically divided him from Umberto Agnelli?
I have never shared the tension between the two of them. From a private point of view, I was more friends with Umberto, with whom we often met in New York.
It is an almost impossible comparison for many reasons, historical and economic first of all, but in your opinion who was more important for the long history of Fiat, Cesare Romiti or Sergio Marchionne?
I have never loved Marchionne, whom I have not known personally. Mine about him is the judgment of a reader who sees things from a distance. I have no attraction or interest in his personality. The comparison could rather be made between Romiti and Vittorio Valletta, but they belong to two too different eras.
–
