A shift in perspective to lead transformation: the experience of Guglielmo Gazziero, Alumnus of the Executive MBA English Edition
14 November 2025Guglielmo Gazziero, Global Commodity Manager at Agrati Group and Alumnus of the Executive MBA English Edition at Bologna Business School, shares how a learning experience can transform the way we think about business, connect strategy and operations, and open up new perspectives for global growth.
What led you to choose the Executive MBA English Edition at Bologna Business School, and how did it meet your expectations?
When I chose the Executive MBA English Edition at Bologna Business School, I was looking for something that went beyond technical upskilling. I wanted a transformational experience, one that could challenge the way I thought about business.
Working in a global industrial context like Agrati Group, with teams and suppliers across Europe and Asia, I needed a broader perspective: to understand the strategic drivers behind global enterprises and learn how to turn them into concrete decisions.
The EMBA exceeded expectations. Every course — from “Global Strategy” with Andrea Cinti Luciani, who offered a clear reading of competitive dynamics and business ecosystems, to “Digital Business (Re)Design” with Luca Gatti, who introduced design thinking as a tool for structured innovation — was a key part of a coherent journey.
Classes in Corporate Finance and Business Performance Analytics gave me a common language with top management, enabling me to bridge financial logic with operational and strategic decision-making.
In short, the EMBA strengthened my ability to read complexity, anticipate change and lead transformation, always with a concrete and data-driven mindset.
Your career path has brought you to a global role in commodity management. What were the key milestones in your professional growth, and how did the EMBA help accelerate this evolution?
My career began in technical procurement, but over time I came to understand that purchasing is not just about negotiation — it’s about deeply understanding market dynamics, reading industrial trends and anticipating global risks.
My growth was marked by several key stages: gaining international exposure, coordinating suppliers across Italy, Turkey and Asia, managing costs in geopolitically unstable contexts, and eventually taking on a global role in commodity management for Agrati Group.
The Executive MBA was a decisive accelerator. The courses in Operations and Business Transformation helped me translate concepts of Industry 4.0 and digital supply chains into real-world projects, while “Big Data and Analytics” and “Digital Platforms” gave me the tools to integrate data into decision-making — shifting from a reactive to a predictive mindset.
But the real turning point was the strategic dimension: “Global Strategy” and “Management Accounting” enabled me to connect operational choices to value creation, understanding how sourcing decisions impact the overall profitability of the business.
In other words, the EMBA gave managerial structure to a vision that had previously only been intuitive.
The EMBA is also a professional network ecosystem. What value has being part of the BBS network had for you, and how do you experience it today in your career?
The BBS network is one of the most valuable assets the EMBA leaves behind. Being in the classroom means sitting next to managers, entrepreneurs and professionals from diverse backgrounds — and this constant exchange becomes a laboratory of continuous cross-pollination.
During project work, I collaborated with colleagues from entirely different sectors, from pharmaceuticals to energy, and discovered how innovation logics are deeply transversal.
The value of the network doesn’t end with the study period: it continues in daily exchanges, shared ideas, and spontaneously formed collaborations. The BBS community is a living ecosystem, where members recognize each other through a shared language, ambition, and approach to complexity.
Today, I see it as a space for collective growth: a place to bring in experiences from the industrial world and, at the same time, to be enriched by digital, start-up-oriented, and impact-driven perspectives.
If you could give one piece of advice to a professional considering an Executive MBA today, what would it be?
I would say that an Executive MBA is not just a title to add to your CV — it’s a deep shift in perspective.
It’s a journey that forces you to question your certainties, to learn to “think from scratch” again — like in the Digital Business (Re)Design and Leadership courses, where you first learn to lead change within yourself.
The advice I would give is to approach it with openness and humility, knowing that the real value is not only in the content, but in the mental training it provides: the ability to move from detail to strategic vision, to connect data and people, to read global markets with a critical, innovation-driven mindset.
The EMBA doesn’t just teach you to be a better manager — it helps you become a more aware decision-maker, capable of giving direction and meaning to your choices.
