This article is within the EU, Italy, Turin series.

It will be built as a narrative around posts that already shared online on either Facebook or Linkedin.

Why now? Since the beginning of the month, attended in person (in Turin) and remotely (in Turin, in Italy, abroad) various webinars and workshops or conferences with a two-fold focus:
1. re-assess how 2026 is shaping up
2. assess the potential for missions.

Frankly, left de facto my birthplace in the 1980s, after spending some time in active politics interacting with the youth groups of the main political parties.

In the first half of the 1980s, worked also on small gigs (selling used books, selling computers and videogames, and designing, developing, selling my first software), then in the Army for my compulsory service, and then a couple of major missions for my first employer- all centered or ending in Turin.

All that converged on the choice to jump at the first opportunity to join missions outside my birthplace: my cultural environment assessment back then proved times and again to be confirmed often, in the 1990s, 2000s, and since 2012, when was within the territory.

The assessment? While decades ago I called Turin "the ministry of automotive", following what my English colleagues said of a bank in UK, since 2012 settled for Macondo-am-Po, from Garcia Marquez.

Or: structural cognitive dissonance.

While living in London, shared with my network (mainly outside Italy, back then) my feed-back whenever we had to deal on a dossier or partnership in Italy, as a kind of "cultural Virgil" helping them navigate the multi-layer, tribal, localistic Italian business and political culture.

Aim: read through the theatrics and sycophancy, and focus on reality- while, of course, paying lip service to the rituals- Romae Romano Vivito Mori- in Rome, do the Roman way.

Back then as now, before settling would have to assess if at least the State is viable and reliable- if it is not, can be a market, but not something you would invest in your time.

In Italy, already did in 2004-2006 business activities where volunteered free time and a significant reduction in fees because it was my birth country and it was for Government projects

Curiously- not my political side, but I am bipartisan: if it is good for the country, I do not care which political party is leading, providing that they do not ask me to join the tribe.

What matters, is that you contribute (or at least try to contribute) to leave behind a slightly better place that you found on your way in.

Ditto in Turin worked for free/deferred with startups because it was my birth place, and wanted to help contribute building something locally.

Then, discovered how Italy really works: I think that I was the only consultant that actually applied a real discount and gave real pro-bono back then, and not to get "credits" from one of the tribes, from all that I met in Rome.

Ditto in Turin.

In the early 2000s, I moved to Brussels after that short attempt to resettle in Italy.

That attempt included, as usual, a program of activities with multiple workstreams that started few years before the actual physical attempt to settle started.

Yes, the quarterly e-zine on change that published between 2003 and 2005 was part of that program of activities (the 2013 update reprint is available online) .

So, we can say that now I have almost 30 years (counting just mid-1990s) of routinely "poking and observing" the territory (Turin and Italy), what from 2012 (when became formally again resident in Piedmont, Italy, where I still am currently based) became a continuous activity.

I think that there is plenty of potential use of my experience on change abroad and in Italy since the 1980s, both in Turin and Italy- if only Italians quit trying to pigeonhole into a tribe.

But, as it was not my choice to return to Turin in 2012, I wasted enough time- what will happen soon will decide if I can consider Italy and Turin territories reliable enough.

Or: to consider help develop the next generation by transferring what learned across countries and industries since the 1980s.

As I had enough nuisances from Italy first while living in Brussels, then since 2012 with some farcical interactions with Italian bureaucracies, interactions that started documenting with timestamps and certification in 2018, courtesy of the mandate to use an electronic registered email (PEC, in Italian) to register a company.

If not, probably better to resettle elsewhere, and consider Italy just as a market where I developed some knowledge, should somebody from abroad be interested on specific opportunities, a mission-based approach.

Therefore, I shared across the years multiple articles about Italy and Turin- you can search in this website here.

Eventually, as already shared in January first metadata, then article contents, by the end of 2026 plan to have other ways to ask questions to the content (starting with those articles, and then extending).

Anyway, I had planned in 2025 to start shifting gear in 2026, and would like to continue on the line that started with Pointers- 2025 and scenarios 2026 - 7 Closing and next steps, the closing article of a series that published between mid-December 2025 and early January 2026.

The key risk? Since 2012 routinely attended events in Turin presenting yet another initiative to relaunch the territory, the automotive industry, and, more recently, managing the transition aiming to make aerospace (and defense) the industry that will replace locally the fading automotive.

Turin is at last having to transition, at a time when a perfect storm is condensing.

A perfect storm made of:
_ locally, an excessive Potemkin Village orientation: "flavor of the day" is neither industrial nor territorial development- somebody should re-read Kotler "Marketing places"
_ whenever there is an issue deriving from this superficial attitude, the reaction is to deny, cocoon in the past, and announce more initiatives, while gaslighting any dissenter
_ Italy in and by itself was able to formally improve its financial standing (rating), but that does alter its structural weaknesses
_ were this not enough, soon
a. the PNRR (the Italian side of the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility) funding boost will end
b. while that funding was supposed to "seed" new revenue streams, in many cases has been used to really subsidize the existing- including a public works spree focused more on the "recover and maintain existing businesses" than "improve resilience"
c. the continuous stream of new initiatives might improve attractiveness (e.g. the proliferation of speed bumps, libraries and other renovation activities, etc), but there is no funding for the forthcoming maintenance, and still have to see a real set of assessments of how and what will generate in term of future revenue streams (even just as enablers) all that spending (as whenever I heard or read interviews with local authorities, all around Italy, the keyword that was most uttered was "spending", not "investing")
d. also at the EU level the list of future spending initiatives is piling up, and the lopsided deal agreed in 2025 with our partner "across the Pond" (USA) was at least curious in content, not just on structure (a supra-national entity agreeing about private expenditure and private investment of companies to be carried out in another jurisdiction).

On the latter, frankly what shared within the #EP2024 series (published between March 2024 and early 2025) was enough, albeit then continued adding more information.

So, title is yes recalling a famous book, but really referring to a 1990s cultural point of reference- Matrix (blue pill - red pill).

Italy and Turin can cocoon into oblivion, rich enough to squander resources until the national and local "tipping point" of sustainability arrives and unrest ensues.

Or Italy and Turin can start triaging between at least sunk costs, phasing-out, worth investing, and worth risking: and dump connected-but-detrimental business and political ballast.

All the above converges on the sections that will develop the narrative, with the following "themes":
_ theme1: long on talking, short on planning and execution
_ theme2: the soul-searching of a former company town and territory
_ theme3: the future of the local work ecosystem
_ theme4: the impacts of AI- now, and actions needed.

Yes, this article will have neither a preamble "narrative" (the bullet list above is enough), nor a "conclusions and next steps"- as each "theme", in and by itself, as I wrote above, is a continuation of the concept of that a href="https://robertolofaro.com/index.php?page=633">multi-part "pointers" article I linked above.

Moreover, each theme contains material with links to further material not just by myself, but also from others.

The next article? Probably on the technological side of geopolitical resilience- but after attending another day-long business event in Turin.

And now, the four themes.



Theme1: long on talking, short on planning and execution

Also if I nicknamed my birthplace Macondo, and since 2012 saw how showed to be a matrioska or tribes, e.g. at the local elections or whenever there is a quarrel about local development, Turin is not in a vacuum.

Yes, presents itself so often as "the natural location for X", where X is whatever international event, international institution, or international bureaucracy is looking for a new location.

Still, it is really an Italian town that shifted from being a small backwater at the crossroads of France, Milan, and the harbor of Genova few centuries ago (interconnecting multiple trade routes), to the first capital of a newly unified Italy in the second half of the XIX century, to the automotive company town in the XX century, called "the European Detroit" by some (albeit it was a company town for just one group of companies, not a triad as was in the USA within automotive).

As any major Italian town, across the decades there was an evolution also on the role and presence of the State, notably State-owned companies (not just in manufacturing, also services, utilities, banks, etc).

In the Thatcher era, Italy too joined eventually the privatization bandwagon- albeit in its own way.

So, we created private companies that still have the State or local authorities as the main or a significant shareholder and, while formally receiving often top management appointees selected by political leadership (national or local), became one of the few sources of management development.

Another side-effect of the geopolitical evolution of the latest three decades, including the end of the Cold War, was the phasing out of many military barracks and facilities that used to be scattered within major towns- including Turin.

In Italy, it is a routine joke that most governments over the last few decades year after year added within the State budget as a source of revenue selling State-owned buildings...

... most often the same assets, that were never sold.

Recently, there have been some movements within the Italian real estate market, as shown in this article:



The most interesting element is that 51% of the real estate sales are funded directly by those involved, without using credit.

As shared in previous posts on Facebook and Linkedin, will be interesting to see the impacts of attracting foreigners interested either to invest or to benefit from the Italian tax law (to attract wealthy foreigners by giving low taxation and full access to our local services as for any local citizen).

Will actually reverse the decline and make again sustainable services and infrastructure that really needed an industrial base (and its roster of permanent, long-term jobs and taxation revenue living nearby production facilitires) to be sustainable?

So far, beside attracting those who can spend, we still lack in Italy something akin to what other countries added as a further condition, i.e. to invest on local businesses or finance new businesses.

It is a curious choice, to attract spending but not investing- as, anyway, you need to fund what actually attracted that spending- as, otherwise, reversing the tide is quickly done.

Actually, it happened in the past in Italy even with investments from abroad that had not been negotiated to build capabilities: coming, draining funding, even putting off the market existing capabilities, and going away, leaving behind more issues to solve.

Developing capabilities does not require just funding- you need also long-term investment in people, the knowledge supply chain, and opening the doors to what "has not been invented here"- technologies, processes, organizations, and, most important, people.

On the latter, since 2012 I heard too many foreigners saying that they liked Turin, but were preparing to move elsewhere, as not being local and white and European (or at least European-looking), they did not expect to see their potential acknowledged here.

So, despite jokes going around, I liked the "seeding" done in France: just recently the Lloyds of London phased out an investment that was planning to deliver yet another "Big Bang" (on integration), but in my experience on change to introduce new approaches, processes, technologies within organizations since the 1980s (yes, even before started to work officially in 1986), I saw that pays more to think long-term and follow... an approach derived from epidemiology.



In Italy, we are, as the title of this section states, often long on talk, short on planning and execution.

We are not the only ones- but the last time I supported a startup in Italy was 15 years ago, after working business and marketing planning and related development activities since the 1990s.

Reason? Good at selling the message, but when the boring parts started, my fellow Italians instead looked for a quick fix, no more than a couple of years.

You cannot change an entire ecosystem in a single swoop with outside interventions: is akin to attempting to export democracy by designing a Constitution without asking the locals.

You need to develop first awareness, then ownership.

Italy has another issue: once in, you assume that it is forever- it works with our élites, it works also whenever something new comes on the scene.

Twenty years ago, while working in Rome part-time as project manager on few Government agencies projects, I was still living abroad.

It was curious for me that a stand-up comedian lambasting the decay of Italian political and business élites could have such a large following between employees in the public sector.

Then, in Brussels, had contacts with those that back then were called "Grillini"- in many cases, formerly had been linked to the party set up by Di Pietro, a former policeman and former magistrate, and before that another party, called Partito Radicale and closely identified with its key representative, the late Marco Pannella.

The Grillini eventually were to become the Cinquestelle (Five stars), but before that there was a funny exchange between Beppe Grillo, the comedian, and a politician of the Partito Democratico (and before that Partito Comunista) from Turin, who then became also Mayor, Piero Fassino.

Ask your Italian contacts, and you will share a good laugh:



Yes, the long-standing politician, when criticized by the comedian, said something like "why don't you set up a political party, and we will see what how many votes you will get?"

Well, as wrote above, the Grillini became Cinquestelle, and eventually seized up double digits.

And, actually, the successor in Turin to Piero Fassino was... a Mayor from the Cinquestelle, Chiara Appendino.

Anyway, right after her mandate, again there was another Mayor from the Partito Democratico.

So, overall, from June 1993 until February 2026 Turin had just for five year a Mayor who was not a candidate of the Partito Democratico.

The most interesting part? The long on talking and short on planning and execution was shown repeatedly across these almost three decades- compounded by the Italian political spoils system, where the winner appoints not just those top managers that are expected to leave at the end of the mandate, but also whatever opening comes up in structures that they manage, and also privatized-but-not-that-much companies I wrote about.

Look e.g. at the board and senior management of many of those Italian companies that have State or local authorities as shareholders, and you will find many former politicians.

Look at all the conflicts of interest within the externalization of the public administration in Italy I wrote about in past articles, with a couple of deeply documented cases over the last 30 years (one still ongoing, and collecting more and more that, as organizational change consultant, would result in significant structural changes if had been found in customers where I worked), that you can read in a kind of "audit trail" book that published in late 2020.

As wrote in previous articles, since 2022 I extended that approach also by looking at the annual reports 2019 and 2021 of both a selected group of companies, and those part of the MIB 40 index of the Italian Stock Exchange.

Meanwhile, I keep collecting and monitoring a large collection of bureaucratic SNAFUs and routine sidelining.

The latter is an Italian habit- in the 1980s, as shared in this 2020 article, even a tribunal in Rome was nicknamed after a novel from Georges Simenon, "Le port des brumes".

Changing an ecosystem might require decades- and this is something that centuries ago we Italians knew- and did as China did over the last few decades.

Of course, requires a willingness to change by sorting out the backlog and setting in place reforms to avoid an encore.

Frankly, something that, looking at my birthplace and country with the eyes of somebody who worked and lived abroad (and not, as many Italians who claim to have worked abroad, for the foreign branches of Italian companies), is still not feasible in most cases in Italy.

In more recent times, the talk is long term, but the planning and execution is short-term with continuous tinkering.

Now, Turin has another relevant issue: we had political continuity for decades that became habit and a sense of entitlement- not only at the top, but across the structures.

And, when this happens in what has been a company town for a century, creates issues, notably when the mutual entrenchment turns into one-side entrenchment, when the business side starts phasing out.



Theme2: the soul-searching of a former company town and territory

Since after the COVID lockdowns in 2020, the Turin business and social ecosystem discovered their frailty, hidden under the pretense of being the industrial capital of Italy, the heart of innovation, etc etc.

A small example (that described in articles published during and immediately after the 2020 lockdowns): the shopping areas in the center depended for a significant part of their business on employees of public and private offices that in Turin were in the center, and that suddenly disappeared, as all office workers started working remotely.

Then, augmented by the rollercoaster of the the former FIAT group (now Exor and Stellantis) since the passing away of Sergio Marchionne, who had resurrected and revamped the hopes.

A frantic activity that further increased since the appointment of the new leadership of Stellantis in 2025: it became a routine of local announces and procrastination of their implementation, and an equal routine of announces of delocalization, expansion of investments elsewhere, etc.

Yes, Turin lived on automotive- but, within the Italian business system, this implied having a multitude of small entities plus branches of foreign suppliers to the main customer.

While the latter had their own organizational resilience, which unfortunately implied that would simply shut down local branches when demand became too weak to ensure business continuity, the former had other issues.

Also, this was the engine to spur the development of two major local banks (now both part of two banks in Milan, Intesa Sanpaolo and Unicredit), which in turn generated two of the largest banking foundations after the law Amato (read here a review that posted in 2020 of a book on the history of Italian banking foundations), with assets exceeding 10bln EUR, and with a structural mandate to invest in the territory.

And the local champion was also the engine to develop logistics, to support the local technological research and Polytechnic, and all the services that are needed to support an aggregation that, in town and in Piedmont, generated directly and indirectly a significant chunk of the local jobs.

Smaller Italian companies still in 2026 often lack the organizational resilience needed to adapt and evolve (e.g. have limited or no slack or available capabilities to reposition), and in many cases de facto externalized long ago their own strategy setting function to their main customer.

Since few years ago, attended a local technological exhibition that includes a set of conferences, actually useful as a "pulse" of the local manufacturing, logistics, and automation:



So, last week had three days of conferences, looking at supplier offers, and listening at debates.

Anyway, beside talking and few practical announces, I shared with my connections also something that received on Linkedin from my network, an opportunity to actually walk the talk:



Because the risk, that I saw converting quite often into a reality since 2012, is to move toward a "tipping point".

Yes, you can remove the main customer (Stellantis and other formerly FIAT Group companies that have Exor as a shareholder), but still the knowledge supply chain, manufacturing supply chain, and associated services and logistics can be useful for other industries- if you catch them fast enough (before decay sets in within the human and physical infrastructure).

Why "tipping point"? Because all that "background", the ecosystem sustaining automotive, will start dwindling as soon as the main customer will start contracting- something that in Turin started really decades ago.

Anyway, up to a point, will still be in place, and still be sustainable, and also able to be repurposed.

My first project in Turin since moving abroad in the late 1990s was a part-time facilitation project in Iveco, in Turin, on datawarehousing finance.

So, I was starting the week in London, then working across Europe, then usually flying from Switzerland to Turin, spending two days there, and going back home in London.

As I was there one night each week, did have a look in Turin and also the logistics areas.

Few years later, living in Brussels, visited Turin before and during the Winter Olympic Games of 2006, and saw how manufacturing had further contracted.

Also, since 2005, contacts within the industry told me of office buildings being sold, dozens of managers being fired on a monthly basis.

There is a risk, in these cases, as saw since 2012: looking for a "silver bullet"- as it is easier than a mosaic of industries and activities:



Yes, there are news about investments (the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti is the usual channel used to funnel funding):

Still, investments in infrastructures and public offices requires not just funding- also the right mindset:



Yes, the concept is to change the minds at the top- but, within the Italian system, you have to change all the "vertical learning" line- and age does not represent a sign of willingness to change.

Working in Italy, met people in their 20s who had already "settled" within the rituals of their work environment: imagine a 25 years old who has the same motivation and talks about retirement as often as a 55 years old.

It is true also elsewhere, but in Italy, in our tribal culture built on local allegiances, repositioning a territory requires not just funding, but also to look at systemic level.

Now, before continuing to discuss Turin and Italy, let's move a bit on the systemic level: again, the future of work.



Theme3: the future of the local work ecosystem

Some structural elements that are changing, including the 28th jurisdiction that was presented by the President of the European Commission at the Turin TechWeek 2025:



Wonderful concept, to streamline business beyond finance- the only issue: as discussed in the previous section about Turin, Italy has overall a different concept of reality and working conditions:



Yes, again the mindset, but I did not wait 2026 to observe talent and culture- as wrote in this post, as of last week there were already more than 70 articles that posted online (and more that now are not online anymore):



Whenever a new technology is introduced, there is a time when things still need to be fixed.

I remember once in a while an article on a foreign newspaper about when Renault sold a truck production line in China.

The production line had robots, but, once delivered in China, the robots were removed, and replaced by people.

The obvious jokes were about the inability of China to use advanced technology.

Then, the article added something else: actually, the Chinese company had removed the robots because required too much maintenance.

The use of people? To revise not just the robots, but also the processes, and design new robots with new processes.

Robots and processes that required less maintenance and had better performance.

Now, this short digression has a purpose: introduce a concept- transitioning toward AI.

On media, on a daily basis you can read about robots, autonomous vehicles, the use of AI, how AI will replace jobs, etc.

The reality, for now, is a bit different:



Now, before you start joking about the modern version of fake robots such as the Mechanical Turk, there is still the need to reconsider what the current string of automation potential allows:





Visit my Linkedin profile, and you will find links to articles, reports, etc- even today, received interesting reports and webinar announces ranging from the OECD to the organizational side of cybersecurity considering the AI perspective.

Again, the key element is: how will all of this interact with the local culture, including the local working "rituals"?

What you read above about Glovo is just a visible tip of the iceberg- the transition from (fading) company town to various attempts, including to become a cultural events magnet, generated an economy where what I did at 18 just a side-show vs. my studies, gigs working temporarily e.g. to sell computers and videogames at the tech expo, is a routine.

Many in their 20s currently work in shops and events but "on demand"- and I heard routinely, since 2012, stories in Turin by younger people who told me how they obtained de facto permanent contracts for a limited period (e.g. 12 months), but formally with what in UK used to be called "zero hours".

Or: you commit for 12 months, but are paid only for the time actually worked.

In the future, work will be probably more about selling your time, than shuttling to and from an office.

If your work follows routine, is repetitive, has limited decision points- the new round of automation powered by AI that is able to use an array of potential decision patterns that "learned" to decide which more predictive and structured elements to activate.

Exactly as most "knowledge workers" really do.

Most office-bound activities are really following a limited set of patterns- and could be easily automated now.

As shown about autonomous vehicles, more complex activities that require to interact with physical objects still require human "backup" or interaction.

For now, as shown by many first projects and experiments using full AI automation of relatively complex decision-making activities, there will be a transition period.

But activities that many still consider "creative" and requiring human ingenuity, when focusing on their result, frankly are already starting to be approachable by AIs.

What matters, notably in a territory where already now there is a natural inclination to keep costs lower by cutting corners, is thinking about three timeframes:
_ now
_ the transition
_ tomorrow.

In the next section, will discuss how choices could actually affect the future viability of many organizations.



Theme4: the impacts of AI- now, and actions needed

As I wrote in the previous section, many "pattern-based jobs", even white collars, are already potentially easy to replace with AI-driven processes.

I shared in past articles consideration on this theme (e.g. search for "work_future", and you will find 270 articles), but few recent examples are worth sharing.

The first temptation is to do as some Italian stylists did in the past- shift production to Tunisia and other countries, keep the same prices, add some final touch in Italy, and retain the "made in Italy".

The same is already happening now with humans, with some consultancies and professional services companies selling at the same price of human work what they are asking AIs to produce.

Temptation 1- replace entry level people:



Risk? If you remove the learning path, you will never have later people that developed those "instincts" that only initial exposure to massive repetitive work generate.

When you meet somebody who has been a "knowledge worker" in a specific domain for decades, usually you can spot it because, given some parameters (s)he is able to connect the dots and give an answer that really integrates a significantly larger number of patterns.

Example: in the early 1990s, for the CFO/COO of a gas distribution company was asked to develop a decision support system model, based upon requirements developed by the consulting branch of an audit firm, with a specific focus on helping the company identify, between different potential locations for a new warehouse, which one would deliver the best kg/LIT/km mix.

After some tuning, the model worked fine, but the real test was asking to a real expert: given the parameters, he gave a number- and that number was close to the one computed by the model via a not-so-small number of equations.

Now, if that model had replaced (was not the case) that person, and new entry employees were just to enter parameters, nobody would have had the knowledge needed to amend or evolve the model- weren't for documentation; still, also with the documentation, nobody would have had time to develop that knowledge.

So, a smarter approach is needed, covering both the now, the transition, and the future.

Recently IBM announced that, instead of cutting on hiring new people, will increase the number of entry level:



The rationale? If you want to become an AI-centric company, you need that AI-first employees, those who are "AI natives" (or at least living along with AI as part of their routine).

Again: you need to redesign not just measuring performance, but also hiring and developing talent, and even what you assume are the best way to develop career paths in a highly volatile environment where, gradually, most of the repetitive work or that based on a limited set of patterns will increasingly be either delegated to AI or a joint effort.

Few days ago, a contact shared a collection of "AI playbooks" for CxO roles.

Yes, as wrote within my post, I had already many of them- but having a structured collection is a good starting point to develop your own:



As, anyway, there is no escaping: if you want to have your own organization surf the tide, it needs not just experts or AI natives- also AI immigrants (to paraphrase Prensky and his digital natives / digital immigrants classification) higher up in the organization and those who have the organizational memory.

That collection is aiming for CxOs, but, actually, also cadres in their 40s or 50s should be part of any "AI immigrants" initiative, to leverage on their knowledge of the organization, its organizational memory, and help during the transition without tossing away what could, in the future, become information useful to adapt.

As in any cultural and organizational change, knowing where you are and were is useful to amend in the future decisions, instead of using just the current formal (and, hopefully, also informal) knowledge.

Because past choices were selective and based on the existing context at the time: if you forget the "why" of past choices, and evolve using just the "now", you risk reiterating past mistakes with new technologies.