Health Is Not Just a Cost, If You Know How to Manage Complexity
THE ROLE AND MISSION OF THE MODERN HEALTH CARE MANAGER ACCORDING TO GIOVANNI MARIA SOROIf you wanted to choose a watershed year in the career of Giovanni Maria Soro, Bocconi Class of 1994 (Business Administration) and Bocconi Alumni’s Topic Leader for Health Care, that would be 2005. That’s when he left management consulting, to become strategic manager in two local agencies of the Italian National Health Service (ASL of Cagliari and ASL of Turin). Until his current role, which he took in 2016, of Director General for the Lombard-Venetian Province of the Fatebenefratelli Hospitalier Order of Saint John of God.
➜ A career destination already implicit in your thesis, which dealt with health management companies.
The thesis was the crowning of my specialization in public management. I feel a bit like I’m the child of the 1990s reforms, when we thought we could change the whole of public administration with managerial means. In part we succeeded, but a lot was left undone nevertheless. Regarding my professional career, in practice I have moved from corporate consulting to strategic management, and I now lead an organization that has several divisions and establishments.
➜ What is your job about?
I manage Fatebenefratelli’s group of hospitals and health and social care facilities (11 of them located in the regions of Piedmont, Lombardy, Veneto, Liguria, and Friuli, for a combined turnover of €170 million) and I report to the ownership of what is an ecclesiastical institution. I act as reference for all the directors in the various central functions, as well as for hospital managers in the area under my supervision.
➜ How is managing a group different from managing a single company?
Thinking of my entire career, I can say that I had to change paradigm several times: as a consultant, you work to support corporate change. As a manager, you need to know how to implement and manage change. When you are leading a group, you must learn to lead change from a different perspective, which is much broader, also considering the various regional contexts.
➜ What kind of Bocconi teachings were useful for your current position?
Bocconi taught me two things in particular: a healthy spirit of competition that drives you to always do better, and, most of all, how to manage complexity.
➜ What are challenges that health care companies must deal with today?
The real challenge is to guarantee sustainable care, which creates value for the patient and is coherent with certain values. Since health spending is not increasing, resources should be allocated in the best way possible.
âžœ Since November you have been Bocconi alums’ Topic Leader for the Health Care Industry, and you’ve been part of the group since its inception. What are your priorities?
Demonstrating that the health care should not be seen simply as a cost, but as a growing industry that can attract international investment. In this respect, since 2016 we have developed a project called “Italy, a Healthy Investment” to promote research studies and related events.
by Andrea Celauro
Translated by Alex Foti
