Fourteen years ago Maurizio Bragagni arrived in London unable to speak a word of English. The heir to his family’s telecoms cable business, Tratos, he had spent his entire life up until then in northern Italy.
Today he is chief executive of the company, Europe’s only independent cable manufacturer still making its product on the continent, and he punctuates his conversation with archetypes of the British vernacular such as “brilliant” and “pragmatic”.
Although his wife and four children live close to the global headquarters of Tratos in the picturesque hills of Tuscany, Mr Bragagni spends a substantial amount of time in London, both managing his business and completing an EMBA – an MBA for working executives – at Cass Business School.