THE DE POLI CLAN
Family efficiency
Of his 70 years on this earth, Davino De Poli has spent almost 55
of them working and is not a man to believe in coincidences or
fate as his DNA has given him a tangible desire to face
difficulties head on and resolve them. However an aspect of his
character means he never acts alone but relies on the support of
his family. A family that has roots deep in two centuries of
history, so much so that recently it received DOC branding by the
Querini Stampalia Foundation in Venice.
My meeting with Davino, who is also spokesman for the family, took
place at his boatyard in Pellestrina.
The De Poli family was already recorded as master carpenters in
the Napoleonic registers. What does it feel like to have such
ancient origins and to now have become the leading Venetian
boatyard industry?
Without doubt satisfied, proud, I'd say, but a few things need
explaining. Our family continuity is characterised by union and
togetherness, but also clever delegation within this context,
giving others room for action to best represent the company. This
basically means being able to create programmes and follow them
through. I have been entrusted with the task of running the
company and therefore of having to decide. At times I am reckoned
to be unscrupulous, but I think this is a restricted view of the
problems, an inability to follow the thread running through my
plans. However, I admit that a certain lack of limits is one of my
personal characteristics and I do realise that at times this leads
me to taking excessive stands in all fields. Commonsense and
experience mitigate all this, I think.
What background do you have as a businessman?
As a boy I was destined to become a naval captain, but the
financial downfall of my father and his brother, master
carpenters, radically changed my life. At the age of 15 I went
abroad and there I remained until I was 18: from a life where I
was protected, coddled and paid for, I found myself living another
reality - brutal, hard, humiliating. However, while someone else
might have sunk, I swam and on my return to Pellestrina, enriched
by all that experience and by a discreet knowledge of another 3
languages (English, French and Spanish), my ideas were clear: I
wanted to succeed and become someone, even if I didn't know where.
I wanted to get my own back for all the hardships I had suffered.
I set myself some intermediate objectives, taking a breather at
each stage to then set off again. I have never set limits to the
company's development and time has proved me right.
What were the stages of this growth process?
Once I had a good idea of the boatyard's problems and seeing that
the world of master carpenters and wooden boats was over, my
brothers and I studied a strategy for recovery, took up the reins
and overcame the consequences of the family's downfall. I have to
say that with the emotional intelligence that has always
characterised my family, our parents have let us know to be very
grateful.
How did the recovery come about?
In four stages. At first we started to do repair work and to
produce small boats in iron. It was a long period of consolidation
work full of sacrifices and lacking in satisfaction, which lasted
about twenty years (from 1955 until 1976). In the end however we
reached the objective that I had set myself with the acquisition
of an order and the production of a ferry to link the Lido to
Pellestrina (for passengers and cars) for the ACTV, the Venice
council transport company. This first success in the scenario of
the Venetian lagoon gave us economic security, peace of mind and
time also to dedicate to our families. We could have continued
like that for a long time, but for me routine is the road to death
and I wanted to look for new satisfactions and new professional
stimuli. At that time we employed 30/40 people in the boatyard and
I was of the opinion that we needed to look for new clients for
more important projects. So I started to spend time on the
commercial side of things, which up to that moment had been
neglected. I believe in synergy: one man can work well on his own
while he is operating in his own dimension, beyond that you need a
team and so I created one with my brothers.
And this was when you realised you could accelerate.
We had to. During this second period, production became more
sophisticated, programmes more specific and we got round to
creating a staff (administrative, technical, etc.) that let us
achieve certain benefits but also led to an increase in costs and
the need to increase turnover, making use of outsourcing. The
number of people employed in the boatyard gradually increased,
stabilising at 100 on the payroll, but today we have 700 external
collaborators. Progress that has also marked the company's
technical enrichment, and the presence of an increasingly more
demanding clientele, including the Italian Navy. We also produced
a series of 5 tugs in this period up to 1985.
When did the real evolution happen?
Between 1985 and 1995, during the years when we consolidated
development with decisive choices, by then assisted by my
daughter, my son and my grandchildren. The production of new
generation tankers for chemical products started in this period
(nothing to do with the sadly famous sea tramps), because these
represent a fundamental guarantee for preventing sea pollution and
offer absolutely safe transport of potentially very toxic
products.
The fourth stage?
Is this one, that I call the attainment of "autarchy". We
personally do the market surveys, order the boats to be built from
the boatyard and then place them. To expand the company's solidity
we have also started to invest in property, such as the tourist
village in Rosolina, the Dogi hotel in Venice. This stage is a
really complex one and hides an extreme difficulty in my role,
with maximum personal risk.
How do you manage to work in Pellestrina, in such difficult
logistic conditions?
Staying in Pellestrina was another bet, because rationally the
boatyard should be on the mainland. Here we had to contend with
sentimental problems of nostalgia for our origins that wouldn't
let us leave our island. There are two sides to every coin: if the
high costs that penalise my decision to stay on the island are the
reverse side, I have to say that the good relations we have with
the world of work make up for it. I like to define Pellestrina as
the "outpost of the lost men", and in this sense, those who live
on this island, 70% of our workforce, learn to resolve many things
on their own, through human relationships and commonsense. We are
tough men, born to fight against the forces of nature, our real
enemy. We therefore take life's hard shots with a certain
detachment, while continually attempting to resolve them.
What is your relationship with the workers?
As I said earlier, here there is non-of that trade union toughness
that characterises other areas, the relationship is a good
personal one, but on the other hand, the spirit of the employers'
is by no means "feudal".
In terms of turnover, what has been the company's progress?
In effect our turnover is a good indication of the gradualness and
level of our development: we have gone from 20 billion in '85 to
60 billion in '95, to 120 billion today (in the old lira).
Taking into account Venice, San Pietro in Volta, Pellestrina
and Chioggia, there used to be around forty master carpenters'
boatyards. Slowly but surely they have closed down and some of
them have gone bankrupt. How has the De Poli yard managed to
remain the bulwark of the boatyards in Venice?
By managing to transform. Adjusting to market times and demand, a
courageous choice that has meant it has not been involved in the
European deterioration of this sector. Now the real limits to
expansion of our boatyard are the physical characteristics of the
island of Pellestrina, its limited width (200 metres at its widest
point and 7 km in length) and the limited width of the through
canals. Besides De Poli, today there is the Pietro Menetto yard,
Sanpierote and Attilio Menetto's, which builds fishing boats:
these are the working boats that the lagoon calls for. The
Sanpierotta was organised like this by the Schiavon in San Pietro
in Volta which has now disappeared.
What are your conclusions when you look from the past to the
future of your yard?
If you can look at the past, live for the present and project into
the future, as I have done, life is a marvellous experience. I can
in fact evaluate the errors I have made and plan the future with
the decision not to repeat them. Today however the new generations
are different and I don't know if this is better or worse. A new
element exists that we must take into consideration though - the
speed at which all changes happen, so that I personally wouldn't
be able to forecast what will happen in 10 years time. I can only
say that I have been lucky in life and in my work. Certainly I may
have lost a few battles, but I think I have won my wars. Now we
need better thinking heads than in the past. I already see that my
daughter may have the edge over me in the new world of
technological innovations.
What do you think of a woman as manager of a company?
Chiara is the general manager of the yard and commissions manager.
I must admit that I have changed my mind about women: I think that
they can outclass men in sagacity, and perseverance. She is also
more willing to face sacrifices. Whereas once I considered my wife
solely as the mother of my children and for this reason she has
perhaps sacrificed an activity that could have given her
satisfaction She has been the companion to my pretentious will.
She has followed me and has completely fulfilled her role as lady
of the house. Even if she has never got involved with the real
business side of things, she has always been at my side
psychologically, there to help me for better or for worse. I must
say that my brothers and I have wives and sister-in-laws of a very
high profile who have never created divisions between us and if
there has been rebellion in the air, in the past, this has been
overcome by commonsense. Just think that during the first 10/12
years of business these women were put on the payroll with
salaries lower than that of the employees. Today, maybe they are
getting their own back, but they deserve it.
What could revive Venice in your opinion?
I think that Venice's maritime vocation leads it to focus on high-
value passenger transport. A classy market is hers: cruisers and
super-yachts with which good use could be made of the dockyards in
addition to the maritime station.
The industrial port must aim as much as possible at procedures for
not dividing loads and select deposit stocks as much as possible
because handling is a progressive cost.
Since the year 2000 Venice has gone from a presence of twenty
to two hundred super-yachts each year. Does this expanding market
interest you?
Definitely. I am already studying the question. The super-yacht
market is in continual, incredible expansion.
From surveys carried out it emerges that only about 10% of demand
in this market is met - figures that speak for themselves.
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