CLOSE UP - ospite GIANLUCA BUFO, AD di IREN nella puntata del 23 dic. 2025

No, but thank you Roberto and thank you to all the viewers.

It means a choice never made before because Iren was born in 2010 and to push that project of union of the three large companies that formed Iren from the beginning, choices of external managers were always made to give impetus to that growth that was being designed. It makes sense at the beginning, doesn't it? It makes sense at the beginning, eh, even though having a management team, so many of my colleagues, a managerial class, who then had built that Iren that we are today piece by piece and when we went through a very difficult period a year and a half ago where unexpectedly the previous CEO passed away, I must say that the shareholders entrusted in such a difficult moment and looking for an even more lasting future to an internal manager and the fact that I was chosen was even preceded. Of this, the responsibility is even more than the pride I feel that in those difficult weeks after the sudden death, more than a few of my colleagues eh discussing it perhaps together told me 'Why don't you step forward?' Eh and so I feel a great responsibility in representing that whole team, all 11,000 people, not only in guiding and being number one.

It's very simple because I was born in Venice to parents of Abruzzese origin. My grandparents were farmers on both sides. All my uncles continued. There she is, mom, dad, the little brother I wanted so much after 7 years of being the only child and it was one of the first families, at least from that part of relatives, that left Abruzzo and went north with dad as an employee, with a career in public administration, mom a housewife and so I find myself born in Venice in a context completely foreign to my parents' DNA. And where they taught me not only how to have a sense of duty, to work hard on that path of dad who brought us north. I was born right in Venice eh to find a perspective of development, to confront the themes of life, but in a very precise family dimension and perhaps even more strengthened by the fact that all our relatives, my parents' parents, uncles, brothers, my cousins were actually far away.

My career actually begins for a slightly trivial reason, eh, in the sense that after my degree in engineering it was the early 2000s, late 90s, where an engineer had many opportunities. Yes, it was a bit of a profession of opportunities, but I was looking for Milan because there was my girlfriend, who later became my wife, the mother of my daughters, and so I received a proposal from Eni to work in San Donato Milanese,

And it was a coincidence because those were the years when the market was being liberalized. Eni chose to go into gas and power activities also abroad. There were big investments being made in the country and so I found a moment of great ferment. It was no longer the Eni of the monopoly, but Eni that had to transform itself and on that path, sometimes with a necessary dose of luck, I built my career, but learning not only to draw from the company. Eni is undoubtedly a great company, I was sent to Chicago to study investment analysis techniques. There were great resources, undoubtedly, but the curiosity and awareness of working with other people alongside, above, below, there, that recipe was really shaped that I try to continue to carry forward when I say that companies are people.

I enter in 2015, eh, when in my last years I noticed that I was looking maybe too much back at the things done and a little less forward at the things to see ahead, I had the opportunity with the then CEO Massimiliano Bianco to insert myself into the group to lead that transformation of commercial activities, so of Iren, electricity, gas and services and therefore relaunch all the commercial activities of the group on gas, electricity, on what later became the other products. So a great challenge, not just a nice position as number one.

But today it is the union of two things, being a utility is the history that we represent, so our DNA, because then it's true, Iren was born in 2010, but in reality they are those companies that go back to the beginning of the 9, at the end of the 1800s, which maybe were called here in Genoa, were called one way, in Turin another, but they were all united by that sense of being called the company for which also every municipality had its own municipalized company that maybe took care of lighting the city, bringing electricity into homes. So we are that history where we enabled life in those homes that we know today to have the first refrigerators where to store food, to have heating, to have somehow, I remember in my childhood as very young, my grandparents in the early years didn't have a bathroom, they lived a rural life and so farmers didn't have, and so we enabled water networks, sewers, so this is our story, enabling that modern life with that great growth of development perceptible and tangible. Today the challenges are different. The challenges are to continue to maintain these services where the person, the citizen, the customer has everything usable immediately in a world that has become much more complex, much more accelerated and where our assets, our activities, our networks, our know-how must adapt quickly and without giving visibility to the citizen himself. A pipe that breaks in a city blocks traffic. The citizen doesn't want to know, a blackout is a nuisance. So guarantee still these very high standards with a growing demand for services, but in an invisible way to the citizen himself.

I was saying it at the lighting of the tree here in the square a few days ago and in the end we have been on our territories for 100 years. Hmm. Eh, the best gift I would like to find for Iren under this Christmas tree is to have another 100 years. Our trades lead to being durable over time, so not following these trends of making everything commodity, everything price, everything hit and run is at the basis of our corporate values, but the trades for which we are called to exercise our professions, our skills and make it so that the things we do today will have to last another 30, 40, 50 years and therefore there is competition,

They are simple resellers, no, of services. Yes, but in the end it's also a world where you confront competition, sometimes even learn. When we started selling, for example, to our customers insurance policies or Wi-Fi fiber connectivity, we certainly didn't come from a DNA comparable to that of the large insurance or telecommunications sector, so there is a hybridization, but sometimes it's also a way to confront that you can't do without.

Fundamental. Eh, in the end today we are 11,300, it's clear that companies are organized, so we have different levels, hierarchies, titles, but at the base, as I said before, companies are people. Working as a team is the way to infuse the whole organization, all 11,300, that awareness that it's never the one to be relevant, not even the one in the position of number one. So my daily life, but my professional history is always made of teamwork and so sometimes of course we are called to appear and even in the toughest moments, not only to take the covers, eh but

Actually we have inserted many in these years because this transformation that is happening in our trades and this contamination with other sectors, the challenges of sustainability, digitalization, energy and ecological transition, means that we have a great need for insertions. The real challenge is not so much to find them and insert them, but today to give them that balanced equilibrium that is not only a matter of trade, salary, professional growth, but also of purpose, right? Why do you believe in this company when you can choose others? What is in the future perspective? So the biggest challenge is actually more in retaining them than in finding them, given that we live in a world where even those new generations, and here I feel some more white hats, have a facility to conceive the labor market, for example, much freer and much more open than that in the generation I grew up in.

It's one of our founding pillars. When at the beginning of the 9th we created dams to collect water and to feed the water here for example of Genoa and all of Liguria or to turn it into electricity in the Alpine arc of Piedmont, there was a long-lived and future vision, but there was a vision where those challenges today also become the ability to work with the territory. Our trades are trades of the territory. We do not do trades in managing water networks, electricity networks, waste collection that can be brought to the cloud or remote from somewhere in the world. They are physical trades, so the ability to work with local businesses. Eh, we not only give employment as Iren and my colleagues, but we develop that local citizen fabric of businesses, because the great growth that the group has made and will continue to make in the coming years means finding partners with whom to share a vision of growth and that will bring growth themselves in their companies. Then each with its entrepreneurial formula and therefore territory means that for example, of our billion euros per year that we make of investments in our territories, 60% becomes turnover for those companies that work with Iren and that in turn have grown, have given new employment, have had the ability to work with other clients, so it is a concrete return to the entrepreneurial fabric. While safeguarding that the things we do must improve that quality of life, that environmental quality today even more than 100 years ago. So, today more than 100 years ago, yet the world changes, it is capable of almost reversing, you saw, I don't even know how to define it, let's say what is happening. I will remain neutral in Europe about electric. Now, a few days ago, Volkswagen for the first time in industrial history closed a plant it was betting on for electric motors. Ford abandoned the electric project. What is happening according to you, given that in recent years you have focused a lot on electric mobility as well.

Well yes, we took it as a trend especially to make our large fleet electric, eh, because it lent itself well, because they are all vehicles that somehow do few kilometers in going to do those jobs, those excavations, those emergency interventions. In reality what is happening on the topic of electric mobility? that every big transformation and the topic of transport is a complex topic eh requires adjustments. So that which was then that European directive that said in 2030, then it became 35, no more gasoline-powered engines, diesel, now there are necessary adjustments, so there is not, probably it is a trajectory that will have the same point of arrival with a few more years and with some adjustments. It's normal that it is so,

Overall on all our activities from here to 2030. What arrives of all this in Liguria? In Liguria arrives a growth of a growth of 15% each year compared to what we did last year, in 2024, let's consider it as a closed year at the budget level, because in Liguria we still have to work a lot on water networks, on purification plants. We must continue to keep the gas network efficient and effective and we want and must still invest a lot in the environmental sector from waste collection that we manage in the province of La Spezia and to all those plant solutions that the region will also want to adopt. Water is what absorbs the majority of investments for Liguria and in particular say pipes. It means pipes that must reduce losses, that must be more resilient and therefore must not gush during periods of maximum summer consumption. It means purifying with purification plants not only to return to the sea an excellent quality water, but also to start reusing it maybe to wash the streets. It means sewers, it means water catchment sources, because let's remember that water is an essential good, we sometimes take it for granted, but the physical beings we are, the human beings we are, do not last without water for more than 48 hours.

But in reality it's an incredible transformation because those years of study then give you method, discipline, rigor, ability to resist stress, also a way of seeing things, problems. Bah, doubt, doubt. Then in the end, with the curiosity that also distinguishes me, in the end you understand that you need to confront many other things. It's not enough only technique, engineering, there are economic disciplines, there is interpersonal sensitivity, there are complexities of moments to manage with counterparts, so it gives you a background, it's a good ground, surely well disciplined that I would clearly recommend to anyone, of course.

But in the end you said it before, right? We are one of the largest companies in the country. In the end we look at it from many points of view, employment, economic added value, in the end they are all themes that make us be in those our trades that are of extraordinary relevance. Eh, so it's normal to deal with a mayor, with a regional president, in short. We live this dual of being inserted in trends that are even global and are relevant for the country. Think of the themes of energy and ecological transition, then declined in the places where we are and therefore undoubtedly with that which can be the mayor that I saw in the photo, but like many other mayors who are not only in some cases our shareholder partners, but are also those managers of the city from an administrative point of view where the quality of our services must make the difference and we are called to answer how we enable that good citizen good that we manage in our activities.

Ah, this is something I really feel is mine, because in the years of commercial activities curious for Genoa and we met, I can now call them friends of the Yacht Club and in the Mille Vele where we invested and so here we are on the stage also with the president Luca Dal Fabbro and the president of the OD Club we invented this formula where now for 8 years besides sponsoring, doing collateral events we started inviting other utilities like Iren, those of Milan, those of Rome, the last edition came even from the mountains of Trentino or all those companies that work in the utility sector. The last edition, this year's, we were 34 boats out of 250 to do a CAP in the CAP, eh, and so these 400 people all employees, that is the all-female Iren team, employees who participated in person, right? In person, many crews had on board the CEOs, the top managers, others instead simple employees or our female team which has always been the Iren boat represented by the female team. This year we started to see other companies come with female teams. It's a moment where you confront each other far from the competition that we have every day, it's a moment that becomes indelible and each one who arrives to participate that year continues and keeps coming the following years too. Eh,

Yes, but then it's also a way to make Genoa known. I must say that when we have the crew dinner the day before the Mille Vele, I have images, memories of CEOs from Milan, eh let me call them that, we were at the aquarium in the dolphin hall like children glued to the glass to see the dolphin. That is, they are moments that enhance beyond what is the challenge of our trades and it is that sense of returning to the territories an ability to attract on Genoa eh companies, industries, management, people who maybe would not have come. So,

Well, I'm a paddle player, I'll leave out the very good. I'll leave it out in the sense that I like sports, I like team sports. Paddle is played two against two. I come from many years when I was younger of volleyball. Eh, I must say that padel is a moment where there is sociability, a competitive spirit and also a healthy sporting fun with an easy formula of four people. Moreover, compatible with what is also the desire that this age has, that is, not only to go out and do something, to enjoy one's family, my family, my three blondes. They also play padel, especially the little one who follows more daddy and there they are. Eh, but then

They are truly the pride of my life and in what is not only career and profession, life is that and what we have built with my wife, those two splendid girls that we gave ourselves.

Well, it's a world that

I work a lot with my daughters to make them pass, perhaps also characterized by mine, no? I said before, my grandparents were farmers. Ehm, in the end I come from generations where there has always been at a family level, let's say, a development, a bit like the whole country from the 40s. And with the new generations it is difficult to have this development. There is a world that is much more ready, wide, with complexities that always come upon these new generations. So I try to make them think about the point we are at, how it is not taken for granted and how in the perspective it can become their challenge and therefore each generation must have their challenge, probably with different measurements than what I had, but with the same tenacity in facing them.

Iren, Men and Women, eh, because Men and Women of Iren. Watch out because here we wrote man, because today the CEO is a man, tomorrow we don't know.