Winner, Rising Star of the Year and Grand Prix Winner

The reason for my nomination

Paola is an outstanding internet executive with innovation in her DNA. A natural leader, she is charismatic, inspiring and gets things done.

A brilliant strategist with a solid management consulting background (at the age of 31, she was the second woman ever to be elected to the partnership at McKinsey Italy), she masters digital marketing and social media and has a holistic view of Internet businesses, matured through her leading-edge experience in the e-commerce world, both domestically (where she was one of the key architects of eBay Italy's rapid growth) and at a European level.

Recently, she has switched gears and applied her Web expertise to the media sector, joining Il Sole 24 Ore (the leading economic and financial newspaper, with a higher circulation in Italy than the Financial Times in the UK) to head its online business unit. She is relentlessly driving a culture of innovation and experimentation, and, while planning for the overhaul of the architecture and functionality of the site, she is leading the mindset change at the newspaper and racking up early wins - thanks to Paola, it is the only major news outlet in Italy where the editor-in-chief and several journalists now communicate with readers via Twitter. I have no doubt that her passion and insight will lead her to help re-invent the future of newspapers.

On the top of her brainpower and strategic insight, Paola is a strong manager: practical, results-oriented, tough but fair, and with outstanding energy and drive. By matching her practical approach with her decision-making and people management talent, she makes things happen fast and effectively.

Paola is also a relentless networker: she identifies win-win opportunities and creates value by putting people, companies, ideas together. Her communication skills are superb; she’s a well-known blogger and frequent web evangelist and educator. I am proud to recommend her as a Rising Star.