Giovanni Malagodi banchiere (1927-1952)

The book gathers the proceedings of the conference held by the Raffaele Mattioli Foundation for the history of economic thinking on 20 October 2004 at 10, Via Manzoni, Milan to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Giovanni Malagodi, in association with Banca Intesa and the Rome-based Luigi Einaudi Foundation.

Giovanni Malagodi (1904-1991) is better known for his political activities, but he was an exceptional banker who spent the early part of his career, between the ages of 23 and 48, at Banca Commerciale Italiana.

Between 1931 and 1935 he played a key role in saving and converting Banca Commerciale Italiana from universal bank to ordinary credit bank; a daring, pioneering move – in the Fascist Italy of the 1930s – to the decentralised management methods of the great American corporations, grafted onto its solid, Germanic administrative roots.

Independently of Raffaele Mattioli, what emerged was his flair for leading a large organisation, training managers in their new tasks and rebuilding a company “culture” and flawless working approach. The accounts published by Malagodi himself are striking for their accuracy and acuity.