Marzia Paciantoni – The Forged Communicator

Sociologist by studies and by passion, Marzia’s character was strongly shaped by the personal and professional experiences she faced. It is really difficult to have her tell her story, it took several calls and discussions to get a picture of Marzia, and it’s just a small part. She holds extensive experience in communication campaigns and dedicates her free time mentoring students and creating an extensive network of professionals that inspire and challenge her continuously. 

Marzia Paciantoni is coming from a first generation of Romans original form Umbria and she is well aware that living in Rome is a great privilege. The only one in the family to start and finish her university studies, Marzia majored in Sociology at La Sapienza University, a choice she made to acquire a comprehensive view of a broader variety of disciplines: social, anthropological and economical.

Although the course of her career seemed to be lined up in front of her, “as a large part of the sociologists ended up in HR roles”, she decided to leave her ICT junior job at Lazio Employment Agency (Ministry of Labor) and continue her academic studies. She won a scholarship for an MBA presided by the Emeritus Prof. Pier Luigi Piccari, and so she followed her growth itinerary. Marzia remembers her 20’s as a period abundant of experiences: she kept herself through university years by working full time, went to the UK to improve her English and started following her passion: social communications. “Making communication socially useful”, as Marzia better describes her core passion, is a topic that kept being central in her mind. 

Following a rather unbeaten path, Marzia spent a year acting as a training consultant in the IRI Management School, being among the first to introduce learning on digital platforms, followed by few years in Sony Computer Entertainment where she took part in the campaign for the launch of PlayStation2 in Italy. She then took a new challenge and joined a start-up company owned at the time by Bain and Company and then acquired by Acotel Group. Here she specialised in business sectors like telecommunications and IoT applications: “from videogames & consoles to interactive TV, from VAS to virtual TLC up to today’s IoT; I always had to keep up the pace with the evolution of technology” Marzia mentions. At the same time, she held different roles, from business development to marketing, from communications to sales, up to the position she holds today as IoT Senior Account Manager.

Marzia is very fond of the company where she developed as a professional, satisfied at the same time for all the learning experience it offered. Moreover, having had to fight her battles against a dreadful health threat, she received more support than she ever imagined. Hearing that, I understood the origin of that strength that Marzia is transmitting as soon as you meet her: Marzia’s character was forged through adversity.

As the topic of social communications intrigued me, I asked Marzia to share her vision of how communications should be used for transmitting socially useful messages and how these can be deployed in particular in the COVID-19 pandemic period we are living. “Social Communications should be in the hands of the public administrations, as the only ones able to guarantee a lack of for-profit interest guiding any message transmitted”. “We should make it easy for all to know from official, reliable and fast sources all the information needed: which pharmacy is open, just to give an example; we should avoid searching the web trying to find out the essential information”.

Marzia loves traveling with her favourite companion, her sister, “and reading” she says while taking me into a virtual tour of her library, “although reading is actually not a passion, but a daily routine I wouldn’t be able to live without!”. During her trips around the Americas, Asia and all over Europe she loves meeting new cultures and is always intrigued to observe “how sometimes peoples so close geographically can be so far ideologically”, she notes having in mind countries in the Adriatic Sea. Thinking of the current dramatic times we are experiencing, Marzia observes Europe as a sum of so many different cultures, traditions and stories but she is still confident in a union that should only become stronger. 

From many successful persons she met along her career, Marzia learned about the importance of the network and in particular, the network the women create. “It is important for us women to understand the need of supporting each other, by providing advice, apart from being an example one to another” Marzia observes. Aware of the importance of learning from example, she is a mentor in the Talent Incubator of the Forum della Meritocrazia for students of La Sapienza. The interest in women empowerment guided her towards PWA that she joined since a year ago and she immediately volunteered as communications advisor helping tailor the messages PWA gives to her new members. She now presents her candidacy to the PR Director position.

By Mirela Cojocaru, Newsletter Editor