The Mondadori Group has signed a binding offer to acquire 51% of the company that manages the intellectual property rights and image of Benedetta Rossi and her brand ‘Fatto in casa da Benedetta’. Benedetta Rossi is Italy’s best-known creator in the food & cooking sector. Her activities range from the digital sphere – where she has a total social fan base of over 17 million followers and 4 million unique monthly users of her website (Audiweb, May 2024) – to traditional media, in particular TV, where she has been the star of various TV programmes dedicated to cooking for years. Benedetta Rossi is also our most important cookbook author in recent years: from 2016 to 2023 she published 9 books that sold a total of more than 1.5 million copies. With this operation Mondadori Media aims to become, through the coordinated and synergic management of the activities linked to the Fatto in casa da Benedetta and GialloZafferano brands, the undisputed leading multimedia player in the food & cooking sector.
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We would like to introduce you to the Mondadori Group’s property, purchasing and general services team. Every day, Chiara Capuzzi’s colleagues support the work of every employee and collaborator by overseeing the services provided by all our offices.
Specifically, the Real Estate team looks after all aspects of our offices in terms of layout, equipment and maintenance. They are responsible for coordinating the recent renovation and refurbishment of the Niemeyer Palace premises.
The Purchasing team procures and negotiates the goods and services that are essential to the functioning of each area: from the diverse world of marketing and advertising, to building services and essential IT equipment, and takes great care in selecting suppliers.
Finally, the entire General Services team actively manages the activities and services that support our daily work, such as mail, canteen, shuttles, security, cleaning, switchboard and travel agency. They are known for their helpfulness and experience in responding to the many requests of Mondadori Group employees and collaborators on a daily basis.
Pictured from left to right:
Introducing the Mondadori Group Legal Department.
Led by Sara Rizzon, the team’s mission is to support our businesses and corporate functions in all legal matters: from copyright to privacy, from contracts to litigation.
With a cross-functional perspective, our Legal Affairs colleagues provide coordinated and consistent support to all areas of the business.
Among their broader projects, they are currently involved in initiatives related to artificial intelligence, with the aim of enforcing copyright in the digital sphere and defining rules for the use of AI within the company.
Pictured from left: Fabiana Tagliaferri, Marco Aliverti, Sabrina Ciccolo, Sara Rizzon, Simone Noziglia, Francesca De Licio and Maria Pia Di Leo.
PLAI Accelerator, the Mondadori Group’s startup accelerator that aims to transform ideas based on the exploitation of Artificial Intelligence into successful entrepreneurial realities, is born. PLAI will offer them a distinctive field of application and an industrial outlet both within the publishing house and with the initiative’s partners.
What are the objectives of PLAI?
– To create a technology hub where we can identify innovative initiatives related to the sectors in which we operate: publishing, education, retail, media and advertising.
– To position ourselves at the centre of the AI revolution, becoming the core of a national and international community of innovators.
– Create industrial value and competitive advantage through targeted investments in AI start-ups.
PLAI will operate in the pre-seed and seed stages by selecting, for each annual cycle, 10 Italian and international start-ups in which to invest. The total financial commitment is approximately EUR 6 million for the three-year period 2024-2026.
In addition to capital, start-ups will be provided with concrete AI application areas, training and mentorship courses, and networking events. All this is also thanks to important Italian and international collaborations: Startupbootcamp, I3P – Innovative Companies Incubator of Politecnico Torino, Amazon Web Services (AWS), PwC Italy, Multiversity Group, GroupM, Codemotion and Datapizza.
We are delighted that our Mondadori and Rizzoli publishing houses have each won an award in seven categories at the first edition of the TikTok Book Awards, the initiative that celebrates TikTok’s connection with the world of books and culture. For the first time, the BookTok phenomenon – born in the United States from the trending hashtag for funny and creative reading advice videos, which soon went viral all over the world, including Italy – received official recognition at the Turin International Book Fair, where the community was able to vote on the app to choose their favourite books, authors, creators and publishers who have made the Italian book ecosystem on TikTok unique. Mondadori won in the Publishing House of the Year category. Rizzoli won Book of the Year with ‘A Good Girl is a Dead Girl’ by Holly Jackson. Our publishing brands have once again proven to be the driving force behind publishing innovation on social networks. Mondadori is also the indirect winner for the Netflix series “Tutto chiede salvezza”, the best TV series adaptation of the novel of the same name by Daniele Mencarelli. Congratulations also to Sperling & Kupfer, finalists in the Revival of the Year and Romance of the Year categories.
The Shareholders’ Meeting today appointed our new Board of Directors, which will remain in office for three years, until the approval of the 2026 budget, and will be chaired by Marina Berlusconi.
At its first meeting following the AGM, the Board appointed Antonio Porro as CEO and General Manager of the Mondadori Group.
In addition to Chairman Marina Berlusconi and our CEO, the Board is made up of Pier Silvio Berlusconi, Alessandro Franzosi, Danilo Pellegrino, Elena Biffi, Francesco Currò, Cristina Rossello, Paola Elisabetta Galbiati, Marina Rubini, Riccardo Perotta and Pietro Bracco.
The Annual General Meeting also approved the payment of a dividend of 0.12 euros per ordinary share, an increase of 9 percent over the previous year.
The Mondadori Group is entering the webnovel market, the new frontier in editorial content creation, born in South Korea and rapidly expanding.
An agreement between Mondadori Libri and Bookrepublic, one of Italy’s leading providers of digital publishing services, has resulted in the creation of a start-up company with the aim of developing this new segment at European level.
Designed to be read on a smartphone screen, webnovels are a highly innovative form of serial fiction that is spreading and developing in Europe from the East to the United States. The operation will take concrete form with the launch of a dedicated app by the end of the year – to be called Narae – initially with content in Italian and French, but which will gradually extend its reach to other European countries.
In the photo, from left: Marco Ferrario, CEO of Bookrepublic, and Enrico Selva Coddè, CEO of Mondadori Libri.
Mondadori Retail presents the team of the new E-commerce department. The team, led by Veronica Gioia, Head of E-Commerce, will work with the utmost focus on the development of an online business strongly integrated with the bookstore network, confirming the strategic role of the online channel.
In the photo, from left: Daniela Graziano, Fabio Tiraboschi, Raffaella Mainardi, Stefano Balbi, Veronica Gioia, Gabriele Pasti, Sabrina Ciani, Silvia Balestreri.
We are increasingly committed to promoting the importance of taking care of oneself, one’s health and well-being. In fact, there are many concrete initiatives and opportunities available to all of us, in particular to spread the culture of prevention.
On the occasion of International Women’s Day, we are proud to share one of these initiatives: every Wednesday, in our Segrate office, all our colleagues can have a free Pap test.
In this way, we are promoting this very important screening service, which is recommended for women of all ages in order to detect any disorders or pathologies at an early stage.
For us, sustainability is a commitment that goes beyond the office. In fact, through initiatives focused on home-work travel, we try to meet the needs of all our employees and contribute to reducing environmental impact.
As the Mondadori Group, we have activated a series of services and conventions
– Company shuttles to connect our offices with train stations and metro lines;
– Preferential season tickets for the use of public transport;
– A carpooling platform to make private car journeys more efficient;
– Discounts on car-sharing services and e-bike or e-scooter rentals.
In particular, we have recently signed an agreement with the micro-mobility service Lime, in synergy with the Segrate Municipality, to provide a pick-up and drop-off point for vehicles near Palazzo Mondadori and at other strategic points in the area, such as the railway station. This is an important project based on public-private cooperation to achieve a common goal: promoting sustainable mobility.
This is why we are constantly striving to improve our actions, also involving our employees through periodic surveys on the subject, which help us to gather opinions and suggestions. And our colleagues are happy to contribute, answering the various questions in large numbers each time.