On March 13th, Dezan Shira & Associates’ Europe-based team members came together in Padua, northern Italy, for an internal meeting focused on aligning efforts across the region and tightening collaboration with the firm’s Asia service lines.
The meeting was led by Riccardo Benussi, Partner, and brought together colleagues from across the firm’s Europe-based team, including members of the Italian, Spanish (covering also Latin America), German, and EU Desks. Participants included Andrea Volpe, Senior Consultant; Angelica Piani, Business Development and Marketing Assistant within the Italian Desk; Dan Nguyen, Senior Associate within the Business Intelligence team; Patricia Aranguren Moliner, Assistant Manager within the International Business Advisory team, EU Desk; and Katherine Cheung García, Corporate Partnership Marketing Manager for Europe and Latin America.
The session proved both extensive and productive: with the future in mind, an assessment of 2025 across the various EU Desk’s branches was the first milestone. The team then spent considerable time reviewing the progress and ambitions of the Business Intelligence division, partnerships at both the institutional and at professional services levels, and performance in recent months. Optimizing efforts and planning realistically dominated the remainder of the meeting, as the team delved into numerous details regarding current clients, campaigns and visibility efforts.
Against the backdrop of Padua, one of northern Italy’s oldest cities and home to the historic University of Padua founded in 1222, the momentum carried into the evening as colleagues gathered at a local venue to enjoy traditional Venetian cuisine, offering a relaxed setting to continue conversations and strengthen connections, which is dearly needed while working far away from one another.
Reflecting on the meeting, Riccardo commented: “You cannot control things like Covid-19 which, upon my move to Europe, put millions of people in remote work, away from the personal interactions we all were used to. I came from a 51-person environment of our Shanghai office, and the webcam became the window to the world. I never accepted it as the ‘new normal’ so I worked hard at slowly growing the EU-based team we have now, in the same time zone, clocking in hours over hours to amplify our firm’s brand in Europe, attract clients, make inroads and increase our subject matter expertise about and around FDI into Asia.”
He continued: “Although we always expect more from each other every day, every week is a fresh start fuelled by good feedback, ambition and vision, while maintaining balance. Meetups like these can propel morale, encourage the sharing of experiences, stress-test ideas, and promote reality checks so we can always work from a grounded perspective. I am very proud of this team.”
Dezan Shira & Associates’ Presence in Europe
Incorporated in Munich in January 2021, Dezan Shira & Associates’ European presence serves as a first point of contact for European companies wishing to do business in Asia. In both the Munich and Milan offices, our European-based team works with a variety of partners to educate businesses on the economic performance and regulatory environment of developing Asian economies.
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