Face to face with...Federico Galloni, Commercial & Marketing Director and Executive Board Member of Dino Paoli

1. One of the key words of Futurmotive – Expo & Talks is “innovation” – a concept that is one of the highest expressions and applications in motorsport. What does an event like Futurmotive represent for you?

For us, Futurmotive is an opportunity to exhibit the best screwing technology we've developed for the motorsport sector, but it’s also a technology that can be transferred to the automotive sector as well.
 

2. Your business developed on the track, and then successfully made a turn towards the industry that we might define as more “traditional”: this is an excellent example of technology transfer. It’s very important to think of motorsport as a sector that has the ability to create a close bond with other sectors – the automotive sector above all, but not exclusively. What do you have to say about that?

Technology transfer has been a part of our story since the very beginning. In fact, the motorsport sector has always allowed us, even to the present, to support research and development, which are then transferred to automotive application. Motorsport is essentially a very demanding training ground for the development and testing of the most innovative products.
 

3. We talked about technology transfer between companies; now let’s talk about “talent” transfer. What’s often repeated is that the new generations have to be more and more specialised in order to keep up with the changes in the sector. In response, training programs are trying to adapt to the needs of the industry, often by directly collaborating with business owners to create ad hoc training courses. What are the skills considered of most interest, and what could be the added value of a vertical training when it comes to motorsport, also as regards adjacent sectors? 

More than the talent transfer, I’d define it as talent creation. The motorsport industry is a very demanding, labour intensive sector, so it needs a supply of extremely high-level talent and skills. Going into detail, at the present time more than anything we need skills related to traditional mechanical engineering and at the same time mechatronics design and software development. These are transversal skills: every single talent must be specialised in their subject, but at the same time have an understanding of all the rest so that they can work optimally within the team.
 

4. Dino Paoli will be at Futurmotive – Expo & Talks taking part in a collective area headed by RPM - Rete Professionisti Motorsport: it’s a key message on the importance of cultivating business networks. Also in light of the change happening in the automotive segment and the aftermarket, what is the added value of participating in a business network?

A few, I’d say. From a practical standpoint, being in a group allows us to take part in international events, like trade exhibitions, whereas before our access to RPM we hadn’t been directly involved. Another is certainly the cross-cutting of skills within the network itself, where all the companies are placed within a single industry, yet each one has its specific preparation that can create synergies among the companies on several levels.