I feel sincerely moved and happy to share some of my thoughts for the 60th anniversary of the professional activity of Mr. Giuseppe Bernoni.
I consider him my professional life mentor for everything he taught me. I have been asked to describe some of the most significant characteristics of “Studio Bernoni” firm, and let me specify that my emotion in doing it is not rhetoric, it is a true feeling that is fostered by the beautiful history of the firm, which strongly involves the people who have lived such history with it and with Giuseppe Bernoni (in my case: I arrived in Studio Bernoni as a newly-graduated in 1982).
This is the story of a Firm that developed through exceptional experiences, that are not only related to the professional world.
A first quantitative datum that conveys an idea of the work of Giuseppe Bernoni: after the establishment of the firm, originally made up of two professionals, in the 80s and 90s it worked with approx. 20 people; at the beginning of the 2000s, those people became 110; now, they are more than 250. Therefore, the idea of Mr. Bernoni not only has developed a professional activity, but has also sustained the relevant families of its collaborators, and this is not a secondary aspect.
The growth of the firm was exponential, thanks to the brilliant intuition to establish a professional activity in the form of an “associated” firm, which is stable and oriented to a constant development.
The first office was located in Via Fontana, Milan, nearby the Court; then, the firm moved to Piazza Meda, behind La Scala theatre; now, the firm’s premises are in Via Melchiorre Gioia, in the new Porta Garibaldi area. And this was not only an evolution in terms of size.
Many pages would be necessary to tell everything about this evolution and about the professional success of Giuseppe Bernoni, which started immediately after his graduation in economics, received attending evening courses while working in a bank, and continued thanks to his good character, his predisposition to human relationships, his activity within Catholic clubs, within professional associations and within the Roll of Chartered Accountants, his ability to rely on valid collaborators and to enhance their value, his exceptional strength at work that brought him to receive a second degree, in law, which gave him the opportunity to start a constant professional growth, both in the private and in the public sector.
In addition to the above, we should not forget his commitment to the institutional activity (as chairman of the association of young chartered accountants, then as chairman of the Milan Roll of Chartered accountant and then of the national roll of chartered accountants and, lastly, as vice-chairman of the European Federation of Accountants).
The firm grew systematically thanks to high professionalism and developed new integrated services, also expanding into the international area. Now, the traditional corporate, accounting, and tax services are integrated with specialized services in international tax, Transfer Pricing, VAT, tax litigation, but also with financial, insolvency and pre-insolvency assistance services (debt management and restructuring, as well as financial planning are now a priority), with the new dimension of M&A, Transaction-Due diligence and business risk services, and with HR services, just to mention some of the developed specializations.
Giuseppe Bernoni also covered prestigious positions, for example in the corporate bodies of important entities such as Cariplo, in companies of the Eni-Chem group, in the newspaper Avvenire, in companies of the then IRI (Institute for Industrial Reconstruction) group, as well as assignments in Montedison group – where, together with Guido Rossi, he led its reconstruction in the post-Gardini era –, Chairman of the board of auditors of Università Cattolica and of the Milan Chamber of Commerce (and of some of its special businesses), and director at Assofondi, and member of the first bank Ombudsman, established for the resolution of bank disputes, without mentioning the many prestigious clients of the firm over years, some of which were assisted directly by Mr. Bernoni and are still our clients, proving the professionalism that has always characterized the firm.
He strived for the establishment of the Milan Tax Observatory, he was member of the Tax Authorities’ Regional Tax Committee and he fought political authorities for the creation of the Italian Statute of Taxpayers' Rights (law no. 212/2000). Additionally, he covered institutional roles as receiver during court procedures, as liquidator of public companies – upon assignment of the Municipality of Milan –, and as tax judge at the Second instance tax court.
With reference to this last assignment, it is worth reporting the words of the President of the Tax Court when he voluntarily resigned to dedicate himself to the engagement at the National Committee of Chartered Accountants: “his voluntary resignment leaves a void that is difficult to fill, as he is depriving us of an honest and skilful professional, who, in his role as judge, was able to stay detached and not to be influenced by his role as President of the National Committee of Chartered Accountants, and has become an example for those who will hold this position in the future”. He continued: “His professional skills contributed to the resolution of difficult problems and thanks to such skills, many disputes have been assigned to the Tax Court section he was part of”.
Giuseppe Bernoni also published several contributions in books, magazines and specialized newspapers. His contribution to the drafting of the principles of conduct of the Board of statutory auditors, which is now a reference document for professionals and recognized by CONSOB as reference practice and now promoted by the National Committee of Chartered Accountants. However, few know that those principles derive from a joint work by Mr. Bernoni, as representative of the Milan Roll of Chartered accountant, together with professor Piero Pajardi, who was the President of the Milan Court (and an eminent scholar in bankruptcy law) at that time.
He has always been attentive towards colleagues, enthusiastic towards young people, promoter of the associated firm and advocate of the importance of women in top roles since the beginning of his career.
As far back as 1969 he stated that that of chartered accountant “is a profession that has much to offer to young people, provided that they are willing to put serious efforts into it, to work hard and that they can easily understand tax and administrative issues. The future, in any case, belongs to associated firms with various professionals”.
And that’s how Studio Bernoni actually grew: its development started by leveraging on the concept of association, implementing it with specialisation (and the ability to integrate various individual expertise) and a marked attitude to team work.
Bernoni keeps on emphasising that the firm needs energy and human resources, agile, brilliant young talents. With this in mind, the firm has gradually come to include new partners on the basis that (in his words, in the book on his 50-year professional anniversary “Una vita per la professione”, published by Ugo Mursia Editore) “... young people are the critical success factor for the profession: on them depend the present, the future as well as knowledge itself”.
Same intuition as concerns women.
Suffice it to say that his first partner was Mrs. Adriana Borgonovo, with whom he created the associated firm registered under no. 1 with the Milan Roll of Chartered Accountants. This situation - I imagine, since I was still a student at the time - raised curiosity and wonder in Milan. But Bernoni kept repeating what Dante said “there are things the feminine eye sees more clearly than 100 male eyes”, as well as the teaching of Pope John Paul II who underlined women’s more acute, intuitive understanding.
In the history of the firm there have been other women among the partners. Nowadays it is easy to support these views, but we need to have the intellectual honesty to consider what it meant expressing them back in the 70s and 80s.
In these last few years, the professional firm has been working like a company, integrating and strengthening its professional services to grow and better enter the market, going beyond geographical constraints to also meet the needs of foreign clients.
His experience with European institutions convinced Bernoni - another predictive intuition - that organisation is key to compete on the international market. The structure of the associated firm represented, once again, the basis for this further development.
The idea proved a winning one: providing clients with a diversified range of services to specifically meet the increased needs of an increasingly competitive, global market.
At the beginning the path was not an easy one and required, especially of him, an intense dedication under various aspects, with different interventions, not only intellectual ones, before attaining the realisation of his idea.
Nowadays the membership of the Grant Thornton international network testifies the soundness and consistency of his choice, which widened the international experience and strengthened the structure of the firm.
The logic consequence was actually a further development of the firm’s organisational model, with new methods and procedures which had to be completely reviewed, implemented and enacted.
Bernoni recalls that thanks to this choice the firm became part of international contexts, becoming aware of specific legal and tax issues of other countries, of the compliance with the international conventions on the avoidance of double taxation, of EU directives and the European Court of Justice judgements. “The logic consequence was that of experiencing the effects of a visibility no longer related only to the Italian context, but also to other countries. This allowed us to gradually extend the work of our partners with expertise in tax matters also to clients referred to us by firms in other countries which expressed an interest towards the Italian market”.
A further merit: his intuition steered the firm towards a new successful direction.
if the firm, after 60 years from its foundation, has achieved meaningful targets and keeps on growing with dynamism, it is primarily thanks to Giuseppe Bernoni, who has never stopped believing in its project, working with passion, professionalism and dedication.
As you may well guess, there are many more anecdotes which could and should be told on this anniversary of a great professional adventure.
I try to summarise: the number of human relationships created, the focus on people and on the growth of young talents, the intuitions which drove the firm’s development and its continuous adjusting to an ever-changing economic scenario, the prestigious professional engagements briefly mentioned above and the ongoing institutional commitment in favour of the profession are an asset which gives an idea of this milestone.
He kept on constantly involving colleagues and friends into his intuition underlying the beauty of the profession and the importance of associating, which in the 60s and 70s was not understood and led him to be considered as a crazy visionary (“What is an associated firm? It is an entity created based on a shared project which develops based on mutual respect and the persistence to attain the common goal”. For those who wish to learn more, I suggest reading the records of the speech he delivered to the national congress of Certified Chartered Accounts in Venice in 1978, still relevant today, but most importantly testifying a clear and truthful vision, which mirrored what actually occurred in the development of the profession). And the facts proved him right.
Behind his desk in the old office in Piazza Meda in Milan was a maxim by Teilhard de Chardin: “Nothing in the universe can ultimately resist the cumulative ardour of the collective soul”.
