BELONG To People

The challenges making you grow

• PEOPLE
• WORK
• GROWTH

There are memorable beginnings, sometimes blessed by a fascinating creative flair, other times just marked by a more than positive performance making those looking from the outside agree and those who are inside and newly hired relax their nerves. However, the first months Marco Bricchi spent at Teddy had a different pace and taste. Inside the Terranova store in Pesaro, where new hires had been trained for years and where he also started his journey, the feedback on his first period was far less than good. “Adele, the Training Manager, was very skeptical about me when I arrived because visual merchandising was something I really found hard to grasp and learn”. Recalls Marco thinking back, after so many years, to a time that was a turning point in his career. “She really tested me and at that time I experienced a pressure I felt only on rare times in my life. Today however I am aware I owe a lot to Adele, since that exact moment my character started to grow wiser. "

An uphill start that slowly turned into an exciting downhill ride on which however slopes did often appear on the track. After the training period at the store in Pesaro, a true apprenticeship for life, Marco started to travel throughout Italy as visual manager for Italian stores. Those are eventful years full of rewards that prepared him to take on new challenges. After some years, the number of days he spent far from home and the kilometers he covered grew at a hectic pace, just like the language and cultural distance from the people he interacted with. He became a buyer, which meant to cross the border and enter another piece of world: Pakistan, Bangladesh and China. “At the beginning it was tough, but later the passion for work was even stronger and I would have liked to stay and live in China, but my wife was expecting our second child so we decided to come back to Italy”. 

In Italy, however, what had become a downhill ride after so many sacrifices, seemed to turn again into a steep hill to climb, a bit intimidating. “One day I was at a petrol station in La Spezia and received a call from Endrio Marcelloni, who at that time was the Sales Manager of the corporate group”, tells Marco, who in that period had taken back his role as Visual Head Manager, travelling throughout Italy. “He wanted me to go back immediately to the office because it was a matter of urgency to talk to me”. Marco thought it could be a mistake he had made and he was so anxious he immediately called Ennio back. “Can you tell me what I did?” And Endrio started talking. “Have you not got it? I want you to become a commercial supervisor?”.  A request that upset him a bit. At the beginning analyzing sales data and turning them into strategies was a work he was scared by and he thought not to be able to take on that role due to his lack of skills and training. However, after some initial confusion and hesitation, he accepted the position thus unexpectedly discovering a tough but exciting job for him.

“I joined the company when I was 30 and they were celebrating the opening of their 50*th store. Now I am 54 and there are over 800 stores opened. I am impressed by the fact that in thiscompany you work a lot but you also grow enormously. You grow together with the company, finding in your job a great dignity and fulfilment. Actually, I was not aware of some of my skills and talents. Teddy made me discover them. In my life I would have never thought of teaching people. I was the kind of person who immediately got crossed, was temperamental, and in time Teddy honed my character, helped me to understand some things”.

Values that Marco does not keep for himself, but always shares with his “students”, felling like a coach who watches and calls them from the sidelines, pushing them to give their best and find their own role on the pitch and outside it.