When the Games End and Real Lessons Begin: A Story from the Italian Alps
The closing ceremony of the Olympics is always a kind of global exhale: a feast of light, sound and human talent. Watching it, I found myself imagining the pride of those who built the first amphitheatres—what they would make of their modern descendants illuminated at night, filled with athletes whose abilities stretch the boundaries of what we think the human body and mind can do.
It also brought back, unexpectedly, a day of intense learning of my own.
Years ago, skiing in Cortina, just after an earlier Olympic Games, I discovered negotiation, resilience and judgement in ways no business school case study had ever quite managed to teach me. All in one day. With a slope, a bank, and an art dealer.
The slope, as it turned out, was the easy part. Focus, balance, enjoyment: the simplicity of moving with the mountain rather than fighting it.
The complications began when a piece of art stopped me in my tracks. When something speaks directly to your soul, what do you do? In our case, we hung up our skis—literally—and headed straight to the local bank, determined to access more funds than any nearby cash machine was willing to release.
We had only one form of identification between us. That was the moment I learned, on my own skin, the value of joined‑up data and effective KYC. More importantly, I learned the value of human judgement. The senior banker could easily have turned us away. Instead, he listened, assessed the situation and chose to help. Grazie mille, signore.
That experience marked the beginning of our later work helping banks create their single customer views. Computers can decline in an instant. People, when empowered to connect the less visible dots, can transform an experience entirely.
Then came the art dealer. She knew the Venetian artist well, and she certainly knew how much we loved the pieces. There was no hiding it. The negotiation was tough—merciless, even—and yes, it cleared our pockets.
Finally, tired and hungry but exhilarated, we began the walk back to the bus. As we glanced up towards the mountain one more time, I found a crumpled €20 note in a forgotten pocket. So up we went again, on the last chairlift of the day, to share a single plate of fries at the summit. A tiny, perfect reward: the kind you remember for years.
Like my ancestors, I keep returning to Italy—to its art, its architecture and its way of teaching balance. Sometimes on skis, sometimes not. Always learning.