ROME — Outgoing Leonardo CEO Roberto Cingolani has given a candid final press conference in which he warned his successor not to tinker with his strategies and said the three-year mandate handed him by the Italian government had not been long enough.
After overseeing rapid growth at the state-controlled firm following his appointment in 2023, Cingolani was released last month when the Italian government decided not to give him a second three-year mandate, surprising industry experts.
Instead the top job was given to Lorenzo Mariani, a former co-general manager at Leonardo and effectively Cingolani’s former number two, who moved a year ago to run MBDA’s Italian operation.
In an online press briefing on Wednesday “to say goodbye” to journalists, Cingolani recalled how Leonardo had added 20,000 staff and grown its share price from 10 to 64 euros on his watch.
Growth at the firm had been “unprecedented”, he said.
On Wednesday, Leonardo reported a 33% year-on-year rise in first-quarter core earnings.
Cingolani, 64, said the firm’s industrial plan was “rolling”, adding, “The strategy is built, capitalized and contracted. The job now is execution not strategy. Deviation from the plan could be detrimental to the success of Leonardo in the future.”
As an example of a new product roll-out, Cingolani cited the Michelangelo Dome, an air-defense system designed with open architecture to allow partner countries to link existing assets and make them interoperable.
The system will be tested in Ukraine against drone attacks in November, he announced.
Cingolani defended his “bullets and bytes” strategy which focused on turning Leonardo “from a defense company to a global security company” specializing in cyber, energy and infrastructure security.
Some experts have suggested that Cingolani fell out of favor in government circles because he was seen as not prioritizing the mass production of munitions and hardware needed as war rages on Europe’s border.
Cingolani however took pride in his focus on digitalizing operations at Leonardo. “We were a non-digital company. Now we have one terrabyte of memory per employee,” he said, adding, “We were creating a digital brand.”
Despite seeing his time at Leonardo truncated by the Italian government, Cingolani said he approved of government stakes in defense firms.
“I believe that you cannot consider a defense company to be 100 percent independent of the state,” he said. “If we pursue only profit and we are independent of public institutions we could decide to sell assets to an enemy country. A state stake in a defense company is justified in ensuring the firm behaves according to the alliances the state approves of,” he added.
“I might not be happy to not be renewed on the one hand, but on the other I understand the state supervises such a delicate issue as defense,” he said.
That said, Cingolani said he believed five-year rather than three-year mandates would be better at the top of Leonardo.
“Three years is too short because this is a mid-term or long-term strategy industry. It is not beneficial for the company. It could be beneficial to extend the mandate,” he said.
Asked why his mandate had not been renewed, Cingolani said, “It is not necessary that I understand. The state can do whatever is needed.”
He added, “Sometimes good results are not enough.”
During his mandate, Cingolani created alliances with Germany’s Rheinmetall and Turkish drone maker Baykar, helped by his friendships with top managers at the firms. Asked if those alliances could suffer due to his departure, he said, “There is a risk but a multi-national company like Leonardo cannot depend on an individual. Those alliances were facilitated by personal relationships built on shared knowledge, vision and strategy. Once that is written in the industrial plan and approved by the board it is no longer a personal point of view.”
He added: “Governance avoids a personalization of the company.”
Asked what he plans to do next, Cingolani said, “I am getting on my motorbike and will travel around Europe for a while.”
Tom Kington is the Italy correspondent for Defense News.
