Female Leadership Reshapes Italy’s Wine Companies

At a moment when Italy’s wine industry is facing unstable markets, reputational attacks and growing complexity, a new study suggests that companies with stronger female leadership are also more solid, more forward-looking and more attentive to the people who work in them.

The research, titled “Il ruolo delle donne nella trasformazione dei modelli di governance e di leadership nelle aziende vitivinicole,” was carried out by Mib Trieste School of Management together with the Associazione Nazionale Le Donne del Vino and presented this week at Vinitaly. It is based on responses from 152 women entrepreneurs and managers in the wine sector. The findings point to a shift that goes beyond representation and into the structure of business itself: away from the lone entrepreneur at the center of every decision and toward more organized companies that plan ahead, delegate responsibility and think in longer time frames.

According to the study, women-led wine businesses are more likely to have clear roles, structured governance systems and shared decision-making processes. They also place strong emphasis on sustainability, identified as a priority by more than 75% of respondents, on local territory as a strategic asset for about 70%, and on long-term strategy, adopted by more than 80% of the companies surveyed. The message is not only about wine as a product, but about wine as a system of relationships, identity and value.

People management emerged as another central theme. Retaining talent was cited by about 78% of respondents as a key issue, alongside continuous training and workplace climate. In other words, competitiveness is increasingly tied not just to production results but to the ability to attract skills and help them grow inside the company.

The picture is not without obstacles. Cultural resistance remains, and access to top roles is still uneven. The cooperative sector appears especially behind, with women still underrepresented in senior positions at large organizations. That gap was described as both a critical weakness and an area where change could have major impact on the future of the industry.

“This research shows that female leadership is not a matter of representation, but of effectiveness,” said Francesca Poggio, vice president of the Associazione Nazionale Le Donne del Vino. “Wine companies are changing and need more structured models that can hold together vision, people and territory. In this process, women are making a concrete and measurable contribution.”

Pierpaolo Penco, who oversees Wine Business training at Mib Trieste School of Management, said the deeper issue in Italian wine is not the product itself but the structure of the companies behind it. He argued that the sector needs more mature organizational models if it wants to remain competitive.

The discussion at Vinitaly was moderated by Lara Loreti and included testimony from Marina Mortara Marsaglia, Giovanna Prandini and Karoline Walch. Their remarks pointed to the need for companies to work together more closely and rethink common strategies in response to market pressures and institutional weaknesses. They also stressed that female talent remains underused, especially in agriculture and in cooperatives, where access to top roles is still limited.

“The complexity of the market and speculation,” said Giovanna Prandini, “made worse by attacks on the healthfulness of wine and on the value of the Mediterranean diet, along with weak political responses, require companies and consortia to quickly revise their strategies.” She said she had worked to build a network of companies able to overcome size limits and had also helped launch an analysis and repositioning effort for Dop and Igp wines across 12 Ascovilo consortia with Kpmg.

“There is much we can do together,” Prandini added. “It is essential to recognize female talent in agriculture, which is still not fully acknowledged today.”

Karoline Walch framed the issue in generational terms. “I deeply believe our task is to preserve what we have received,” she said. “We must continue building on these foundations and pass them on to future generations in a state that is equally strong, if not stronger. Each generation leaves its mark with the awareness that it is part of something much larger than itself.”

The study’s broader conclusion was direct: the question is not simply how many women sit at the top of wine companies, but what kind of business model is taking shape around them. Female leadership, it found, is emerging as part of a new organizational paradigm one that brings together vision, people and territory while building value over time.