Giacomo Mareschi Danieli, CEO of Danieli Group, is best known for leading one of the world’s foremost multinational companies in the design and manufacturing of steelmaking plants and metallurgical technologies. However, in a recent interview, he stepped beyond financials and industrial performance to speak about something equally impactful: the company’s broad commitment to healthcare, education, culture, and community development.
“Danieli is a company that believes in doing”, says the CEO, emphasizing how the Group’s success is rooted in the region and the people who support it. This mindset fuels numerous initiatives aimed at giving back to the territory where Danieli operates: “We want to return value to a land that has welcomed us and where our people grow”.
One key area of intervention is healthcare. The Group, along with its steel division ABS, is investing €800,000 to upgrade the operating theatres and install an angiograph for the haematology department at Udine Hospital. The company also has a longstanding corporate tradition in blood donation, with 420 registered donors in its Afds Officine Danieli section. In 2024 alone, the Group contributed 482 blood donations, equivalent to 230 litres. Additionally, the company supports youth health education through “Sa.Pr.Emo”, a prevention and awareness program launched in 2018 in partnership with Confindustria, the local police, and Udine’s public health services. The initiative aims to prevent substance abuse among students, involving not only young people but also parents and teachers.
The company, Giacomo Mareschi Danieli confirms, also supports the Paralympic movement as an official sponsor of FINP (Italian Paralympic Swimming Federation) for over five years, helping athletes achieve international success, including at the 2023 European Championships in Dublin and the 2024 Paralympics in Paris. Local sports receive more than €200,000 annually in sponsorships. On the cultural front, the company supports museums, music academies, choral groups, and exhibitions.
Education is a fundamental pillar of Danieli’s social commitment. The Group is leading the redevelopment of the former Dormisch brewery into a new 6,000 m² campus for the ITS Academy Udine, complete with an auditorium, library, bookshop, and cutting-edge technology for 375 students.
The company also provides support to its workforce: in the current fiscal year (starting 1 July 2024), €13 million in bonuses will be distributed, of which €5 million will go to Italy and the rest to international subsidiaries. Danieli employees benefit from a welfare budget of €1 million per year and, as Giacomo Mareschi Danieli points out, “the salary of a Danieli employee is 7% higher than the average for the metalworking and industrial machinery sector”.
The company is equally committed to professional development. Through the Danieli Academy, the Group invests €3 million in training every year and has provided over 60,000 hours of training and 56,000 hours of mentoring in the last fiscal year alone. Even more remarkable is the fact that Danieli is the only large Italian company to offer an integrated educational programme from nursery school to middle school. Founded in 2009, its educational centre offers bilingual programmes, CLIL-based teaching and courses in robotics and programming, supporting the emotional, cognitive and social development of its students.
Through programs like “Fabbricando”, a project aimed at introducing students to STEAM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics), the company is actively shaping the talents of tomorrow. “We want to guide students towards the professions of the future”, concludes Giacomo Mareschi Danieli.
