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This is a long story

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This is a long story. I could write a long post. I don’t assume you’re interested: in that case, feel free to close your browser or skip to the next content proposed by your feed reader. But if you would like to know more about this long story, keep reading.

This long story concerns my most recent relationship with my job and with the company I’m managing. I have written about it here and there in this blog and on my professional page, but, in detail, I have always tried to separate my professional life from my personal one, like Mark S..

I was a software web developer, a lot of time ago. Then I started coordinating a team of developers and selling customized software products. The company I was collaborating with became part of a holding company to deal with communication (with my ex-partner, then CEO of the newco) and ITC (me, CTO of the newco). It was the end of 2019 and the beginning of a new adventure.

We created a new company with the purpose of supplying exclusively the holding and the subsidiaries. After a few months my ex-partner decided to leave, returning to his private activity. I stayed inside and the owners asked me to support them by managing the newco in their place. I became CEO and continued my work as an outsourced CTO for the entire group.

From an IT perspective, the parent companies and its subsidiaries were in prehistory from an IT perspective. They had nothing: unmanaged PCs, email accounts on baby servers, a home network infrastructure, and a huge number of problems. I, along with the colleagues who followed me on this new path and who were essential to achieving our goals, had a ream of blank sheets of paper to start drawing with.

I came from the software world, I said, and I didn’t have great IT experience. Furthermore, I needed a manager and skills. The plans began to take shape, thanks also to the investments of the owners.

In a short time:

  • I hired a manager for IT and systems (I also thank him for the relationship and the work done);
  • we created a systems department;
  • we set up a new help desk department to provide support to the group’s employees;
  • we consolidated the software department and developed products (especially accounting and HR) dedicated to the group’s businesses;
  • we started a procurement department to provide digital services and products by centralizing and lowering costs;
  • we migrated the entire server infrastructure to Amazon AWS;
  • we trained all employees on privacy, cybersecurity, and operational projects;
  • we improved and standardized the management of networking, the provision of personal equipment, and workflows;
  • we wrote policies, practical guides, and operational manuals.

The newco came to have over 20 employees and several collaborators, two operational offices (one in Caserta and one in Milan). I was a spinning top between northern and southern Italy. We managed almost 600 users.

With a well-structured organization and clear ideas, we transformed the IT infrastructure of a company with significant ambitions, taking it from a very low level to a very high level. The scent of internationalization was starting to be felt in the air. But we knew how to keep our feet on the ground.

And we did well because the air began to become unbreathable. And then even the earth was no longer safe. An earthquake came.

Between 2023 and 2024, the holding began to suffer from financial problems. And with it, some of the group’s companies. And us, a strictly dependent company, even more so. During those two years, many colleagues left, frightened by a future without prospects. Some resisted.

To those who resisted, all my respect and gratitude have always gone. It is for them that we have recalibrated the project.

It is for them that I have remained in my place.

In mid-2024, we renamed the company, which had a name closely tied to the parent company, to Wedea Digital. We worked to restructure it and transform it from an “IT department” to a digital consulting and IT services company capable of proposing itself on the market. We developed a new brand and trained colleagues so that they could deal with realities different from those we were used to working with. Not only that, but we formulated proposals in MSP mode, created partnerships, and packaged and improved software products that we had previously prepared. In short, we tried to become independent and distance ourselves from that ugly story.

We worked with many customers and developed solutions ready to be sold. But the time was too limited, and the risk of a slip was just around the corner. And the slip occurred.

The lead company has started bankruptcy proceedings. We became “property” of the court. The adventure, I believe, has almost reached its end.

It’s hard for me to write all this. Mostly because I can’t talk about it in my family — Mark S., remember? — and I want to avoid causing concern at work. But I’m pretty sure that — lucky for them — my colleagues don’t read this blog.

I am tired, discouraged, and I really would like to change. But I am heavily involved as an administrator, and I must necessarily understand how to get out of it without causing damage to the people who believed in me, firstly, and to myself. If I write about it publicly, it is because I need to scream, first, and breathe, then.

So, what will happen now? I don’t know yet, I’m making some evaluations. In the meantime, foremost, I have to get my state of mind back on track after the earthquake that overwhelmed it. After that, look around and, possibly in a short time, go back to writing new stories.

Thanks for reading this far. It’s not a given, I owe you a beer.