If there is one country that is associated with a "mama" ruling over the home, that country is Italy. Even grown men are said to like being catered to in a motherly fashion. The statistics confirm this: "Women in Italy still devote a staggering 225 minutes more per day to domestic work than their male counterparts," says Monica Pesce, head of the Professional Women’s Network (PWA) in Milan. "This is the worst record in Europe. In Sweden, by comparison, it amounts to 73 minutes."

Pesce is quoting a 2007 EU survey "Women Matter" by international management consulting firm McKinsey. No wonder women at the top are scarce in Italian companies. According to the same study, only Luxemburg has fewer women than Italy on executive management boards. With only three percent, Italy is eight points below the EU average – and this is a country that is among the world’s top ten industrialized nations, with a liberal, dynamic society.

At Allianz in Italy, however, the picture for executive women is brighter. Despite Italy’s low executive management statistics, several women occupy prominent and highly visible positions in the company. An Italian woman – Alessandra Valentini – is COO on the Board of Allianz Reinsurance in Munich.

Bettina Corves-Wunderer, a German, moved to Trieste six-and-a-half years ago to become Chief Financial Officer at Allianz in Italy (then Lloyd Adriatico). Maria Clara Grego heads Allianz Italy’s motor and non-motor insurance retail business, Elisabetta Petrucci is head of the life business, and Lorella Sdrigotti is leading the small commercial project within Allianz's Sustainability Program and also co-managing the Italian integration from offices in Munich, Milan and Trieste. The five women show that women can succeed in business in Italy and Germany.

"Ti posso richiamare?" (Can I call you back?) German Bettina Corves-Wunderer asks a caller in flawless Italian, while she tries to put her finger on what is making it difficult for Italian women to have a career. Although she has been a manager at Allianz in Italy for quite some time now, she’s not sure she has a definite answer: "I have felt accepted here all along," she says, while noting that number-crunching is not traditionally associated with women. Other aspects of the Italian work environment have also impressed her, such as the more solution-oriented, pragmatic decision-making she sees in Italian management.

Alessandra Valentini is a Roman who moved from Allianz RAS in Milan to Munich in 2007 when Allianz SE Board Member Clement Booth offered her the Chief Operational Officer post at Allianz Reinsurance.

Like Corves-Wunderer, she is in a position to compare aspects of work and culture in Italy and Germany: "The family plays an important role in Italy and in Germany, but in Germany it is a moral institution, the cell of society," says Valentini. Because of this, she feels it might be even harder for women to succeed and rise higher in Germany than in Italy. "I was surprised at the German attitude of wanting to 'spare' female colleagues with children from demanding positions of responsibility," she adds. "My instinctive reaction was: How a woman deals with her children and family should be her concern alone, not something that is a factor in the work environment."

Other prominent women at Allianz in Italy, Maria Clara Grego, Elisabetta Petrucci, Lorella Sdrigotti, share additional thoughts, concurring on one point in particular: knowledge, education, professional qualifications and competency are not an issue. Women score at least as well as men in these areas, they all feel. To succeed in business, "women need to be more determined," says Sdrigotti. And "more tenacious than men to reach equal positions," adds Petrucci.

But do women have to be even better than men? "Let me put it this way," says Valentini, "there are no mediocre women in powerful positions."

Compared to men, professional women tend to put less of an emphasis on career, power and status, concur Grego, Petrucci and Sdrigotti. So what helps women to be successful then? "It’s hard to say categorically," says Grego. "I have always done what I like with enthusiasm: my job, my family, my kids. They are all equally important to me. My profession is a passion, and I never felt I was different on the job because I am a woman."

Besides the passion, Sdrigotti sees women’s "soft skills" – their ability to communicate values and emotions, their ability to mediate – as an advantage, especially for team work. To Petrucci, on the other hand, women’s higher emotional involvement is both an asset and a liability: "We can get more easily hurt or disappointed when things don’t go our way," she notes.

Having the right mentor, somebody who believes in your abilities is also a great help. "Enrico Cucchiani’s arrival at Lloyd Adriatico in 1996 certainly gave a new impulse and opened doors to women and young people", says Lorella Sdrigotti. Like Clement Booth, Enrico Cucchiani, Allianz SE Board Member and CEO of Allianz Italy, believes that women are one of the resources least tapped by companies. "Women are 50 percent of the population, they make up 50 percent of the brainpower and 50 percent of the management potential in this world," Cucchiani observes.

"The next generation of Italian women will have more role models to look up to," concludes Petrucci on a positive note. "There is no reason why the number of women in executive management in Italy should not someday catch up with other countries."