An Expert in Digital Strategy at the Head of Moscow Alumni

FIFTEEN COUNTRIES ON THREE CONTINENTS. ALUMNUS ROBERTO DE MEO RECOUNTS HIS TRANSNATIONAL CAREER


Forty-three years old and an international career in strategic consulting: this is the profile of Roberto De Meo, the new leader of the Moscow Chapter of the Bocconi Alumni Community. Bocconi Class of 1999 (Degree in Finance), he started his career in the Italian office of Bain & Company ("But the job also took me frequently to France"). He then moved to Moscow, then Madrid, a period during which he also had professional experiences in Germany, England, Denmark and Thailand, then back to Moscow. He currently lives and works in the Russian capital as Head of Digital Projects at Visa Consulting & Analytics for CEMEA (Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa) countries.

➜ Your professional growth mostly occurred abroad.
I have worked in 15 countries and three continents; I had to learn five languages, although I still have difficulties speaking some of them. Growing professionally abroad is hard, but also stimulating and exciting.

➜ What lessons does an international career teach?
To be greatly adaptable. And not only in business, but also in your everyday interactions with people. Adaptability is a great value on the job: it has made me more flexible and has definitely enriched me.

➜ What is your current role at Visa?
Visa Consulting & Analytics is Visa’s business unit offering consulting and data science services to banks and large companies. Basically, I work to develop our clients’ access to the digital market, so that companies can improve digital acquisition of customers and optimize their digital platforms. In a nutshell, I deal with 360-degree Digital Strategy in major companies.

➜ As an international strategic consultant, how do you see digital transformation in the countries you work with?
Being in charge of Eastern Europe and the Balkans, Central Asia, Africa and the Middle East, I deal daily with what is probably the most diverse macro-region in the world. You go from Russia, country whose digital is state of the art, to Africa, a digital market with great potential, passing through the Middle East, which is in an intermediate position. In the less advanced countries from a digital point of view, you have to make access to infrastructure (internet and smartphones) easier and enhance consumer education. In more advanced ones, the focus must be on monetization of data.

➜ Since last May you have been leading the Bocconi Alumni Community in Moscow. What are your plans for the Russian chapter?
In the last year and a half, before becoming Chapter Leader, I assisted the group working on professional networking. We then developed a dense schedule of events that have enabled us to count on around one hundred active alumni today. Now the aim is to diversify, develop ties and collaborations either with the other chapters or alumni from other universities, and launch events that have new formats, for example the dinner speech formula.
 

by Andrea Celauro
Translated by Alex Foti