After 15 years Giovanni Sabatini leaves the general management of the Abi (Italian Banking Association). The executive committee of the association of Italian banks – we read in a note – today (Wednesday 8 May) unanimously approved the consensual termination of the employment relationship of the general director, Dr. Giovanni Sabatini, and expressed heartfelt thanks to him for his seriousness , commitment and competence in the activity carried out since 2009. The executive committee then tasked Egon Zehnder with finding the most suitable profile for his replacement. He will need a figure capable of following and dealing with institutional moments, of dialogue but technically preparedwith a background to be found in banks or institutions.
In the meantime, he will be replaced by the deputy general director, Gianfranco Torriero. Sabatini, 65, would have retired within a couple of years and worked at Abi for 15, after taking over from Giuseppe Zadra in 2009. «There have been 15 intense years at Abi, characterized by events that have had different impacts on the credit system, from financial crises to bank bailouts, years of great complexity, which have seen Abi engaging on a variety of fronts, but also great satisfactions.
Now, after 41 years of work, I will look for a bit of balance between work and private life”, reveals Sabatini, who at Palazzo Altieri saw the tail end of the Lehman Brothers crash, the sovereign debt crisis, the peak of the spread and the quantitative easing launched by Mario Draghi at Lancaster House, the bail-in of Banca Etruria, Marche, Cariferrara and Carichieti and then the bailouts of the Veneto popular banks, the reform of the popular banks and the BCCs and lastly the banking contract with the related tensions that led to Intesa Sanpaolo’s exit from the Trade Union Affairs Committee (Casl). Lastly, the tax on extra profits, contested by the director himself in an institutional forum such as the Senate commission on the Asset bill (he defined it as “unconstitutional”). In short, he is not a simple technician, but also a figure of rapport and connection alongside that of president Antonio Patuelli, whose mandate expires in July. On the Financial TimesIn fact, Sabatini had underlined the difference of Italian banks compared to the “old narratives”, defining “the Italian banking sector as one of the most solid in the European Union”.
Sabatini arrived at Abi after a period as head of issuers at Consob, followed by two years – 2006-2008 – as general director of the “Banking and Financial System – Legal Affairs” of the Treasury Department under Tommaso Padoa Schioppa, during which he worked of Alitalia (he was also an advisor). He was president of the Executive Committee of the European Banking Federation for two terms and a member of the European Economic and Social Committee.
He also held positions in the strategic investment fund promoted by CDP. Today he will only retain the roles of councilor of the Protection and Loan Fund and vice-president of Cbi (on Friday with the meeting the vice-president of Bancomat will cease). From September, however, a new adventure: «I will be a contract professor at the Cattolica of Milan of the English course “Principles of banking” within the faculty of Banking Sciences. I feel the commitment to transfer what I have learned to young people interested in the banking worldI feel it as a small debt of gratitude for everything I have had: it is important to pass on to the new generations basic elements to appreciate the work of the banks in supporting the growth of competitiveness and the economy”.
