EdiliziAcrobatica is a man’s dream that has been translated into the entrepreneurial reality of thousands of people.
This man is Riccardo Iovino, a Genoese skipper, with a passion for the sea, the wind and, of course, for great heights. It is from him, from his desire to put himself to the test and to challenge traditions that everything started in 1994 when, on a sunny day, he got off the boat and decided to help a friend and try to replace a gutter using that same technique of the double safety rope he had learned by climbing the masts of sailing boats. And if it had to be true that every revolution begins with a simple gesture of the will of a revolutionary, that gesture of Riccardo Iovino, which was paid for with a bottle of red wine, was the beginning of the greatest revolution in the construction sector that took place in our country.
Like all success stories, even that of EdiliziAcrobatica started from a garage:
the one in which Riccardo opened his company and from which he left every morning armed with ropes and equipment to descend from the roofs of Genoa. The success of his idea of not using scaffolding, speeding up and making the renovation and maintenance work on buildings cheaper, begins to travel by word of mouth through the streets of the city and soon Riccardo has to look around to find his first workers, to whom he has to teach the technique he has developed. These are years of intense work for the first rope-access workers’ team, days of euphoria and enthusiasm, dedication and absolute passion that characterize the awareness that what had been a challenge, a dream to believe in, was turning into a revolutionary reality that was not only by modifying the way of building, for greater protection of workers and residents of condominiums and buildings who, thanks to the technique developed by Riccardo, no longer had to fear raids by thieves and criminals from the outside, but was creating employment precisely in the years of the global crisis caused by the bursting of the subprime mortgage bubble which, starting from the USA, had overwhelmed the economies of the whole West.
2007: the turning point.
The drive to grow and Riccardo Iovino’s absolute trust in the greatness of the rope-access technique, therefore proved to be decisive and, thanks to the entry into the company of Anna Marras, an expert in the selection and training of human resources, it seems that the most incredible page in the history of the company started its unstoppable growth from that moment. Having abandoned the garage in which it was born, EdiliziAcrobatica opens its first headquarters in Genoa, in via delle Brigate Partigiane, where its headquarters are still located today, and gradually launches a process of widespread expansion throughout the national territory that encompass the main Italian cities: from Florence to Rome, going to Turin and Palermo. The business model developed by Riccardo, and the ability to identify the right people to be included in the workforce, the training and study courses that are provided monthly by the newborn EDAC-OSM Partners, an internal Academy founded by Anna, mean that the dream of a single entrepreneur is transformed into an opportunity for many others: so in 2015, with the participation in the Milan Franchising Show, the second phase of the rope-access expansion begins. An expansion that today translates into 35 franchisees spread throughout Italy which, added to the 50 direct offices of the Group, represent over 90 operational areas that employ more than 1000 employees.
The explosion of EdiliziAcrobatica, which is now also dealt with by the main news and newspapers of the country which dedicate pages and television services to the technique developed by Riccardo, continues with the listing on the AIM segment of the Italian Stock Exchange, dated November 2018, and replicated in February 2019 with the entry of the stock on Euronext Growth, the European capital market traded in Paris. Two transactions which, once again, confirm the revolutionary vocation of the Group which, unique in its sector, has given rise to a dual listing.
The recent history of EdiliziAcrobatica S.p.A. It is a story of crossed borders and new, ambitious goals achieved and yet to be achieved: if a revolution is possible in one country, it must certainly be so in others, think Anna and Riccardo who, as from 2019, started a project of internationalisation that leads the brand to the acquisition of a company in Perpignan, specialized in the same sector, and to the saving of dozens of jobs. The conquest of the French rope-access market begins from here, which to date has 8 operational areas in the Midi of the country.
Not even the Covid-19 pandemic, and the subsequent blockade of construction sites wanted by the Italian Government in the Spring of 2020, has blocked the company which, faithful to the principle that guides it, that of transforming every crisis into a new opportunity for growth, inaugurates in record time a new business line multiservices dedicated to cleaning, sanitation and disinfestation. Not only that: the restrictions imposed by the Corona Virus emergency is the stimulus for the creation of the first European App designed to allow condominium administrators to remotely hold meetings with their administrators in complete safety.
“The impossible does not exist – Riccardo Iovino says today – when there is an unshakable determination. When I told my friends that I wanted to revolutionize the world of construction, eliminating scaffolding and scaffolding in favor of the double safety rope, they told me I was crazy, that I would never make it. But I knew, I felt, I was sure that my idea was the right one, just as I understood that it was only me, my will, my trust in this idea, on which everything depended.“
“Almost 30 years later it is clear who was right and who was wrong: EdiliziAcrobatica has revolutionized the way of building in Italy and it is preparing for revolutionaries in the world. Because the limits are not the borders between countries, but only the borders that our mind decides not to cross.“