New Board of Directors and new Governance of Fondazione Reggio Children

Reggio Emilia, Wednesday 18 December 2024

Yesterday and today the Promoting Founders‘ and Supporting Members’ Assemblies were held to renew the three-year mandate 2024-2027 of the educational foundation established in 2011, which focuses on quality education, research and solidarity

Today's inauguration of the new board of directors: historian Vanessa Roghi and Elena Bertolini take over, Professor Annamaria Contini, Giuseppe Zizzo and Harold Göthson are confirmed as directors

Francesco Profumo, former Minister of Education, University and Research, is the new President of Fondazione Reggio Children-Centro Loris Malaguzzi-ETS and Carla Rinaldi, outgoing President, has been appointed Honorary President. 

Yesterday, Tuesday 17, and today, Wednesday 18 December, the meetings of the Founders and Supporting Members were held, as well as the inaugural meeting of the new Board of Directors of Fondazione Reggio Children - Centro Loris Malaguzzi-ETS, the educational and research foundation, based in Reggio Emilia at the Malaguzzi International Centre and the former Caffarri, which deals with quality education projects for all ages at the national and international level.

The Assemblies of the Founders and Supporting Members appointed the new Board of Directors, which took office today and elected Professor Francesco Profumo, already a member of the Scientific Committee of Fondazione Reggio Children, who was nominated as a board member by the Municipality of Reggio Emilia. At yesterday's assembly, Mayor Marco Massari appointed outgoing president Carla Rinaldi as honorary president of Fondazione Reggio Children with wide-ranging responsibilities.

In the board of directors, made up of six members including the president, the assemblies of Founders and Supporting Members also elected the new board members Vanessa Roghi, historian and author of history programmes for Rai Tre, Bodini Fellow at the Italian Academy of Columbia University (2020-2021), an independent researcher, a board member nominated by the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, and Elena Bertolini, managing director of the Accento Social Cooperative. Councillor Annamaria Contini, Ordinary Professor and Director of the Department of Education and Human Sciences at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, and councillors Harold Valdemar Göthson, Senior Consultant at REI-Reggio Emilia Institutet and Giuseppe Zizzo, Head of Medical Operations at Diaverum Italia were confirmed.

 

ASSEMBLIES AND NOMINEES OF BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND CHAIRMEN

At the meeting of the promoting, participating and honorary Founders conducted yesterday by the outgoing president Carla Rinaldi, in the presence of the general director Cristian Fabbi, participated, in presence or online, on behalf of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia the Mayor Marco Massari and the councillor for Educational Policies Marwa Mahmoud, for Coopselios the president Gianni Calabrese, for Cirfood -Cooperativa Italiana di Ristorazione Laura Bagnoli, for Gruppo Iren Arturo Bertoldi, for NAREA-North American Reggio Emilia Alliance Margie Cooper president of the board of directors, for REI - Reggio Emilia Institutet in Stockholm the president Anna Ahrborn with Greger Rosnes, for the Boulder Journey School & School of Education & Human Development - University of Colorado Lori Ryan, Allison Maher and Sam Hall, furthermore for Fondazione Manodori the president Leonello Guidetti and on behalf of the honorary founder Andrea Malaguzzi, Loris' granddaughter, Paola Pignataro Malaguzzi. Red Solare and Effe 2005-Gruppo Feltrinelli spa are also among the founders. The president of Istituzione Scuole e Nidi d'Infanzia, Federico Ruozzi, was invited to attend. The Founders' Assembly elected the first five councillors and saw the appointment by the Mayor of Carla Rinaldi as honorary president. Next, the sixth director was appointed by the Supporting Members' Assembly, made up of 30 people who have joined Fondazione Reggio Children thanks to the membership campaign, which will start at the beginning of the new year. This afternoon, finally, the board of directors appointed the president. Auditor Gualtiero Bertella was confirmed as auditor.

THE PROFILES OF PRESIDENT AND HONORARY PRESIDENT

Professor Francesco Profumo today chaired the first board meeting of the three-year period 2024-2027 of Fondazione Reggio Children, on whose Scientific Committee he has been a member since 2011. Francesco Profumo is Professor Emeritus of Politecnico di Torino. A former rector of the university between 2005 and 2011, in 2011 he was appointed president of CNR, the National Research Council, and Minister of Education and Universities until 2013. He was president of Iren Spa from 2013 to 2016 and president of the Bruno Kessler Foundation. He chaired Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo from 2016 to 2024 and was president of Acri. Today he leads Isybank, Intesa Sanpaolo's digital bank, the Quadrivio Fund, Escp Business School Turin-Paris and Uni-Italia. He has been a member of the European Innovation Council - European Commission since 2022.

The honorary president Carla Rinaldi, pedagogist, Lego Award 2015, has been president of Fondazione Reggio Children-Centro Loris Malaguzzi-ETS from its inception in 2011 to the present. From 1970 to 1994 she was a pedagogist, then pedagogical director of the early childhood services of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia alongside Loris Malaguzzi. She was president of Reggio Children srl. Since 1999 she has been a lecturer at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. She has been a visiting professor and government consultant in various countries around the world. Her book ‘In Dialogue with Reggio Emilia’ has been translated in all continents. Among the conferences to which she has been invited are the summits called by the Pontifical Academy in the presence of the Pope on the Global Compact on Education in 2020 and on Climate Change in 2024.

AN INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION

FOR QUALITY EDUCATION, SOLIDARITY AND RESEARCH

Fondazione Reggio Children-Centro Loris Malaguzzi-ETS is a scientific research participation foundation established in Reggio Emilia in September 2011 at the instigation of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia to promote quality educational experiences in Italy and around the world, especially in peripheral contexts.

Since 2022 Fondazione Reggio Children has been a third sector organisation.

It has developed over the years, under the leadership of the pedagogist Carla Rinaldi, quality education, research and solidarity projects against educational poverty in Italy and worldwide. It is therefore a private-law entity, which has a non-profit and cultural management model and does not receive direct funding from public bodies, but sees its projects financed thanks to public or private partners such as The LEGO Foundation, Con I Bambini, Enel Cuore Onlus, Save the Children and Credem, Cesvi and Intesa Sanpaolo, Emergency, the National Council of Architects PPC and the Educational Workshop of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia. Among its projects, it has promoted a PhD programme ‘Reggio Childhood Studies’ with the Department of Education and Human Sciences of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, and has now opened a new space for educational laboratories and research on sustainability and digital technology in the former Caffarri, industrial architecture in the area of the Reggiane Workshops in the Innovation Park of Reggio Emilia. In the Social Report 2023, the Reggio Children Foundation reports among the numbers: 150 thousand beneficiaries, 16 ongoing projects, 60 active partnerships, 15 countries in the world reached, 28 PhD students for a staff of 15 people, numbers growing in 2024.

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