Female students, future ruling class, will be able to attend Bocconi thanks to OTB

In Italy, only 19.1 percent of top positions in public bodies-such as the Constitutional Court, Superior Council of the Magistracy, embassies, and independent administrative authorities such as Consob-are held by women. In listed companies only 2 percent of women serve as CEOs, in banks only 1 percent. In our country, moreover, fewer than 35 percent of senators and 36 percent of deputies are women. In some of the most important STEM (Science, Technology, Engeneering, Mathematics) faculties there is still a large gender disparity among enrollees (only 17 percent are women), not to mention the gender pay-gap, the difference in salary treatment between genders, that women have to face once they enter the work world.
 
OTB Foundation has always been by women's side in Italy and abroad with projects that protect them and, at the same time, support them on a general path to emancipation. This is why the Foundation has decided to stand by the next generation of women who will lead our companies and our country by supporting them during their university education. The Italian managerial class of the future, in public administration as well as in private companies, will necessarily have to see a greater presence of women, and the idea of facilitating this process passes first and foremost through education.
 
Università Bocconi, Italy's leading international university, has embraced this project-promoted by OTB Foundation-and will select, according to rankings, female students from a three-year course at Italian universities who are highly motivated to become leaders of the future, deserving in terms of academic record, and eligible for financial aid.
 
With an initial investment of 280,000 euros, the Foundation will finance the costs of the two-year master's degree program at Bocconi University for the selected female students, who will be able to choose from four courses - Economics and Management of Government and International Organizations; Politics and Policy Analysis; and International Management and Management - that allow them to enter the world of work in two fields, public administration and management of large companies, in which a greater presence of women is necessary and desirable.
 
The first courses that female students will be able to access thanks to OTB Foundation support will begin in September 2022. Applications are already open on the Università Bocconi website and the deadline for registration for the last session of admission tests is 17/03/2022.
 
Arianna Alessi, vice president of the OTB Foundation, comments, "The Foundation's commitment to supporting women, my experience as a woman manager in sectors still dominated by men, and the data we read about gender inequality led us to this project, which we hope to develop more and more, involving other actors in the business world and institutions. In our country, we are still a long way from giving the right value to women's work, and it is therefore necessary to promote a more gender-sensitive culture. Female empowerment means, for us, creating a woman-friendly society by nurturing each woman's potential through training. In the project we wish to involve the beneficiaries of this aid from whom we will ask for a commitment to support other women, both at the mentoring level and - in the future - at the economic level with the establishment of other of scholarships, thus going on to create a virtuous circle of women helping other women."
 
"Investing in education means investing in our future, by giving young women access to university is doubly valuable," comments Gianmario Verona, rector of Bocconi University. "Promoting gender equality in a concrete way as in the case of this initiative will in fact have beneficial effects on the economy and society as a whole. In this delicate phase of our society we need the commitment of the best talents, and for this we need to remove every obstacle that prevents them from having a positive impact on the world of work and institutions. Among them, those related to gender are a legacy of the past."

For female students interested in registering for the admission test, please click here.

If already admitted, please check the requirements and how to apply for a waiver by clicking here.