E. di C. SpA

Legal entity established in 2001 in order to support the creation of the Polo Lionello Bonfanti, to administer its activities and to support its development.

E. di C. S.p.A. was established on 13 October 2001 with headquarters in Loppiano, Figline and Incisa Valdarno (FI) with the mission of following the birth and the first steps of Polo Lionello Bonfanti, the first Italian entrepreneurial pole of companies participating in the Economy of Communion project. A great challenge was accepted by the first shareholders who bought the shares of E. of C. S.p.A. and they thus achieved direct participation in the company.

A SPA that must establish “an Economy of Communion company, operate within the market, live a healthy business culture, produce goods or services efficiently and economically, with responsibility respecting the rules of competition” (Chiara Lubich from Lectio held at the Catholic University of Piacenza on 29.01.1999 on the occasion of the awarding of an honorary degree in Economics and Commerce).

The adhesions have been immediate and generous: workers, professionals, entrepreneurs willing to move with their company, to make their professionalism available in a thousand ways. There have been several capital increases from 2002 to today: entrepreneurs and shareholders who want to experience a new way of doing business, living an economy that is communion, full sharing. Polo Lionello Bonfanti was inaugurated in October 2006 when the E. di C. S.p.A. has moved its legal and operational headquarters.
Approximately 20 companies and associations currently located in the Polo, belonging to the various sectors; among these, on 24 October 2009, the RISANA Polyclinic was inaugurated.

Numerous are activities carried out in the Polo and managed by E. di C. (training sessions, meetings, exhibitions, expò) and the joint promotion actions to strengthen the direct sale of products and services.

The latest renewals of the Board of Directors offices occurred in 2009 and 2019 put new teams to work for a consolidation of the identity and mission of this unique business center and for the widespread achievement of the company’s first objective: an economy of communion.

Fundamental was the extraordinary assembly of 2017, in which the transformation of the legal form into a benefit company was unanimously proposed and approved, as required by the law of 28 December 2015, n. 208, single article, paragraphs 376-384 (2016 Stability Law). In this way, the E. of C. S.P.A. is recognized as a company that follows one or more purposes of common benefit and operates in a responsible, sustainable and transparent way towards people, communities, territories and the environment, cultural and social assets and activities, bodies and associations and other stakeholders.

This law embodies the spirit that animates the E of C. S.P.A. and its statute.
The advantages that being a benefit company gives are important; especially in the case of E. by C. S.P.A. emerges:

• The security, on the part of the shareholders and all interested parties, that the company will continue to pursue over time the purposes of common benefit set out in the statute and to account, in a transparent manner, of the methods adopted to pursue those purposes;
• The ability to attract Impact Investment Capital and to access private investment capital even by conscious consumers;
• The ability to acquire a reputational advantage as a company that operates responsibly.

Benefit Companies represent an evolution of the very concept of a company. While traditional companies exist with the only purpose of distributing dividends to shareholders, benefit companies are the expression of a more evolved paradigm: they integrate into their corporate purpose, in addition to profit objectives, the aim of having a positive impact on society and on the biosphere.

E. of C. S.p.A. manages, plans, and promotes the growth of the Polo Lionello Bonfanti in line with the principles of the Economy of Communion project.

After an initial phase in which it followed and coordinated the design and construction of the building, it currently manages the property, coordinates the promotion and development of the Pole, and the initiatives involving the Polo and the companies that are part of it.

It operates in the training sector with courses such as Governing the Charisms and School of Biblical Economics, in collaboration with the SEC, School of Civil Economics and as a Conference Center open to the whole national territory and beyond.

Its activity pursues the following goals:

• promoting actions to establish a settlement in the Polo virtuous and sustainable companies  and give vivid testimony that the EoC is a possible model of economy
• being the ‘home of entrepreneurs‘, to polarize Italian companies, to be the lighthouse of the EoC in Italy
• Performing the function of incubator of companies inspired by the Economy of Communion
• Being a space for dialogue in particular for the Italian civil economy.

Current Governance

It is made up of 8 members elected by the shareholders’ meeting of 25/05/2019. Articles 19-27 of the Company Statute define the functions and characteristics of the BoD (Board of Directors).

• Koenraad Vanreusel – President
• Rebeca Gómez Tafalla – Chief Executive Officer
• Sandra Maria Della Bella –
• Councilor and  Responsible for  Impact Manager of E. di C. Spa Benefit Society
• Annunziata D’Oronzo  – Councilor
• Carlo Pigino  – Councilor
• Fabio Vitale – Councilor
• Mauro Ventura – Councilor
• Maria Gaglione – Councilor