We are Gallus - Laura Franchini

Position: FRANCHINI & C SRL Marketing Manager
Education:  Diploma in International Business Studies

Career: I started my career at Franchini & C. 24 years ago as an interpreter. In this neutral position I was able to start and, later, deepen, my knowledge of the label industry. I quickly realized that my strength lay in sales and marketing and, fortunately, my father’s factory needed support in that department. Therefore, I started my future career here as marketing manager, although the day-to-day activities often involve several other commercial aspects.

Hobbies: Although my free time is quite limited, I love to spend time with my pets. At the moment I have 2 dogs (Labradors), 5 black cats and a turtle. I also love cooking, gardening, home decorating, traveling, reading, writing – and several other thing that I’ll never find the time to do!

Family: Married to Pietro Alfano, Managing Director of Franchini & C., who shares some of my passions, especially our pets and cooking.

At Gallus since 1/7/2008

Your company took over the Gallus sales and service agency in 2008. How would you describe your first year as a new member of the Gallus family?

It has been both exciting and very challenging. We shouldn’t forget that Somaca has represented Gallus successfully in Italy for more than 35 years, and our taking over was – and still is – a delicate process.
We started by visiting several customers in our area in order to introduce ourselves – not as Franchini & C. (as we have been in the field for more than 40 years) but as the Gallus team in Italy. We wanted to find out what they thought about the developments and to understand what they liked and didn’t like about the Gallus operations in Italy, with the aim of improving and, above all, updating the quality of our service wherever possible.
After just three and a half months, i.e. in October 2008, we organized an Open Day at our premises to introduce the new Gallus-Franchini family to all our customers. We received about 300 visitors in 3 days and saw great signs of trust and gratitude from most of them.
The message we wanted to get across is that we are a traditional, well-established family-run company with an open mind for ongoing innovation in the future.

What is the biggest challenge that you face in Italy?

Unfortunately, the world is going through a very difficult period at the moment, but we hope that, after the storm, the market will return to full strength and offer us the opportunity to reinforce Gallus’ position in Italy.

What is your vision for the Italian market?

In such an uncomfortable period, it is very difficult to make predictions.
Nevertheless, I’m very confident in the creativity of the Italians and their ability to find a way out.

What do you expect from Labelexpo Europe 2009?

Recently, we have seen very slight signs of recovery in the market. As you can imagine, we are very optimistic and hope that Labelexpo will confirm this feeling.

How do you unwind? A few words about yourself

Pietro and I live in the Lombardian countryside, not far from Milan. We have no children, unfortunately, but we share many hobbies.
Although we work together, Pietro is in charge of sales at the company, so he is often away on business in other parts of Italy. Therefore, I always look forward to spending some time with him “far from the madding crowd”!