Date: 2014 – Nationality: Italy
Description: Loredana Reppucci, born in 1937, tells Lunàdigas about her career in the tech companies of the 1970s in Italy. They were workplaces where it was difficult for women to find employment, because they were considered professions in which only men could excel. She tells us about work environments mainly dominated by men and how women were treated and controlled: although she was professionally respected, the company controlled her choices in the private sphere and expected her to respect certain behaviours even outside the company.
After graduating in Mathematics and Physics, she competed for a position as an “operator” at Olivetti computers and won it. His first assignment was at Piaggio Aeronautica for the design of aircraft.
When Loredana Reppucci finds the mathematical formula to prevent the plane’s wing from coming off in flight, she is invited to Rome to present her work, but at the end of her presentation, the luminary’s words were far from being appreciative: “If you have succeeded, Miss, surely someone else has already done it.” Loredana’s career progresses, but to a certain extent: “In a short time, I had a considerable career advancement, but I knew that I could never hold a managerial role, no man at the time would accept to be managed by a woman”.
She then decided to start her own business: “I started first as a freelance partner at IBM in the management of small manufacturing companies that were starting to become computerized, then I discovered, almost by chance, a system flaw in the management of pharmaceutical prescriptions and created a program that could solve the problem”. From then on, work increased and the company grew: Loredana hired staff, especially women, opened three offices, carried out the first project in Italy for the analysis of national health expenditure and became a consultant to the Ministry of Health, dedicating herself to innovative projects, many of which are still in place.
She narrates how she faced, once she too became an entrepreneur of a company formed mainly by women, some situations such as maternity-related absences that, in the company where she had previously worked, not only they were not recognized, but the company claimed not to want to employ female employees who wanted or had children.