The shareholders' meeting of 13 November elected Sandro Bonomi as AVR's new president.
Married and with three children, Sandro Bonomi was born in Brescia on July 10, 1963. He is currently Chairman and Commercial and Financial Director of Bonomi Industries srl and of the other companies of the group. With a diploma in accountancy, after experience in England and the United States, he joined the family company - Rubinetterie Utensilerie Bonomi srl, founded in 1954 - with an operational role in sales and marketing administration. Driven by a passion for technology, he dedicated himself to the digitalisation of the company as early as the early 1980s. He personally supervised the establishment of the subsidiary of Rubinetterie Utensilerie Bonomi srl in the USA in 1994 and the one in Japan in 2007, until the construction of the new logistics centre in the state of Minnesota in 2014.
In the last decade the company has started the LEAN project to streamline and make processes more efficient and in 2017 joined the Elite programme of Borsa Italia.
«The main objective - states the new president Sandro Bonomi - is to further strengthen AVR by multiplying proselytising actions, as well as offering stimuli for personal and professional growth to the management of member companies and bringing to the attention of members issues of great impact for the future of companies such as governance and generational changeover. It will be necessary to provide food for thought by setting up a white paper on the sectors represented by AVR, to pay renewed attention to internationalisation and relations with sector associations around the world and finally to open a direct dialogue with members to gather their sentiment and information on how the association can best contribute to their success.»
The sector represented by AVR in 2019 reached a turnover of €7.5 billion, of which around 65% came from exports; following this year's crisis, data from the Anima Studies Office predicted a decline - inevitable - in 2020 of -10.3%, for a year-end turnover of €6.75 billion.
«The current period is certainly one of the most difficult in recent decades. The Italian taps and fittings and valve sectors are among the most appreciated abroad" Bonomi continued, "and now we need to remind the whole world that the fame of our products is due to the excellent quality of Italian companies. Among the challenges of the coming years, the green economy is the main objective to be achieved at European level. Digitalisation will undoubtedly be fundamental and constitute a strong element of transformation for the sector. In this scenario AVR will have to be a promoter of initiatives that drive the transformation, also taking advantage of the collaboration with CEIR (European Association for the Taps and Valves Industry), with Italian and European institutions and standardisation bodies».