Farewell Notes of Departing BAIA Executive Director Giorgio Ghersi

Tonight BAIA held its 15th event at the 631 O’Farrell Street in San Francisco. The topic of the event was a little bit outside BAIA tradition, but nevertheless very interesting: Italian Education as a Business: the Rise of Italian schools in the Bay Area.The event has been very successful and has shown one more time the key role BAIA is playing in creating contacts and networking opportunities for the Italian-American business community. Tonight is a special night also for a different reason: it is the last night for Giorgio Ghersi as Executive Director of the Association.

When the three founders (Giorgio, Michele and Matteo) started BAIA, they set up a few internal rules to ensure the association stays healthy, fresh, and open. One of the rules states that a new Executive Director has to be elected every two years by the Board. A few weeks ago, the Board has elected Matteo Fabiano as the new Executive Director to continue the great job done by Giorgio. While welcoming the new director, I believe it is important to give some additional visibility to the speech Giorgio gave tonight. Here are his words:

Giorgio Speech

Ladies and Gentlemen, good evening, and welcome to this BAIA event number 15 since our first in April 2006. Thank you for filling this room with such characteristic Italian warmth. With this event BAIA is completing its second year cycle of networking, presentations, and development of the Italian business community in the Bay Area.

BAIA, which stands for Business Association Italy America, was founded with the goal of becoming an open networking platform for businesses and professionals operating in the United States and in Italy. Through the means of an independent, nonprofit, member- and volunteer-based network, we aimed to create a professional forum through which information, knowledge and opportunities could openly, and effectively, be exchanged among entrepreneurs, managers and professionals in the United States and in Italy.

Tonight, thanks to our sponsors, Elliot & Mayock immigration law in San Francisco, C’era Una Volta restaurant in Alameda and Al Mare gelato italiano in Berkely, we are going to present the first panel related to “Italian Education as a business venture”.

From what I’m hearing, and as I can see myself tonight, this is a topic of great interest to our community, and this event may be only the first of a dedicated series.

BAIA tries to cover 360 degrees topics of interest to all of our membership and supporters, as it should be, given that it is the only independent Italian business association in the Bay Area, and we believe the community needs it.

Tonight I’m personally closing another cycle, which is two years of my Directorship of the Governance of this non-profit organization.

It has been a pleasure and an honor to serve BAIA in this role.

Many thanks to my Co-Founders, Matteo Daste and Michele Ursino, without whom BAIA would have never existed, and to all the other Directors and the whole Governance, with a word of particular sympathy for all the ones that started as volunteers or interns, as Sabrina, Alberto, Federico, or Flavio -in Italy- and stick at it, becoming active part of the Governance.

During these two years BAIA has risen to a role of great importance, with multiple chapters, international presence and relations, and institutional recognition.

I am confident that, under the new leadership of Matteo Fabiano, our next Executive Director, BAIA will continue to deliver, and grow further, thanks to its open governance structure, and to a common foundation of strong ethics and moral character among its founders and members.

Therefore, in the name of BAIA, I want to thank the entire community, and the institutional representatives present here tonight for their support, and wishes that such support and cooperation among all those who share the vision of a united, permanent, modern and transparent business association for Italians in the Bay Area will continue to grow and strengthen in 2008.

Thank you very much.

Giorgio Ghersi

I would like to express the gratitude of the Board and of all the BAIA members to Giorgio for the exceptional job he has done for the Association in the last two years and for the values he has been able to "inject" in the BAIA DNA: openness, honesty, and a sincere and profound sense of community.

Thank you Giorgio!

Franco Folini

Comments

[Matteo Fabiano]

Many thanks to Giorgio for the extraordinary leadership and the incredibly hard work he has been putting into BAIA!

[Massimo Arrigoni]

I agree with all of the above. Thank you Giorgio. Unlike other initiatives of this kind, where there's a lot of smoke and little fire (or 'tanto fumo e niente arrosto' as they'd say in Italy), BAIA's been quite the opposite. The efforts currently under way in Italy will be along the same lines.