“A super power? No thanks, too complicated”. The CEO of Marazzi – the ceramics company founded by Filippo Marazzi in Sassuolo in 1935 – Mauro Vandini’s isn’t playing around. His typical day is actually quite normal: “Reading the papers, then lots of reunions and meetings with my collaborators, the collaborators of my collaborators, clients and phone calls to the United States and foreign partners. I willingly visit the factory or the lab, but not as often as I would like”. Certainly, less than when he began working here in 1983, when he thought he would be technical director and, instead, started taking care of just about everything – from management control to purchasing – that is, anything but technical.
Thirty-six years and three generations later, Marazzi is a major international brand in the sector. The acquisition, in 2012 on the part of Mohawk Industries, led to expanding their scope ever further and to accessing important investments, which is not easy for a family-run company to do. “The most innovative ceramic products are made here in Italy, where we have the best expertise and avant-garde technologies,” he continues. “But internationalising is necessary and our placement is optimal to support the risks of an ever-competitive market, where digital technologies have contributed to raising the level of products in general and where the rules are not the same for everyone, not even in Europe.
It has been like this for Marazzi since 1980, when we opened plants in Spain and the United States”. Instead, technology has always been in the company’s DNA. From when, in the 1970s, Pietro Marazzi invented single-firing, a technique which revolutionised the industrial ceramics sector, allowing production of a tile from 24/48 hours down to 1 hour, and which literally “invented” the regional district in Emilia. “The district has always worked by engaging and exchange and with a very strong competitive spirit, among neighbours who push each other to excel,” states Vandini. “I believe this was the winning formula and the only one that could really work even in the future: joining expertise and skills to be one step ahead of international competitors”.
Mauro Vandini Born in Bastiglia (Modena) in 1957, Mauro Vandini graduated in Electronic Engineering in Bologna. He started working at Marazzi in 1983, performing numerous tasks: Technical Director, General Director of International Operations, President of Marazzi USA and COO of Marazzi Group. Since 2013, following the acquisition on the part of Mohawk Industries, he became CEO of the company.