#IamISACA: Respecting Technology’s Power–and Its Limits

I currently work as the head of internal audit at SAVE, an organization that manages the airport of one of the most beautiful cities in the world, a city with an astonishing history of self-government and leadership in commercial, cultural and diplomatic relationships: Venice, Italy. SAVE is also the parent company of several organizations that manage other airports in the Italian northeast airport system, including Treviso, Verona and Brescia.

Venice is a state of the soul, where I love to walk in the Piazza San Marco and visit the Basilica, the Doge’s Palace, the Procuratie and the Leads, and be immersed in a story of enormous humanity and extraordinary wealth, wisdom, courage and power. Only in Venice can one have the experience of walking on the same stones as mythical characters such as Marco Polo, Sebastiano Venier, Giacomo Casanova and many others, including the unfortunate last Doge, Ludovico Giovanni Manin.

My role as head of internal audit is an interesting but challenging one, especially considering that the legislation governing the business can be deeply convoluted. This year, naturally, has been very hard for just about everyone in the aviation industry, which has been seriously affected by travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many others in the industry, we were forced to use temporary state-subsidized furloughs and drastically slow business activities. Overall, we reacted with great determination and dedication, giving priority to the protection of the health of passengers and staff, so much so that in August, the Marco Polo Airport in Venice obtained the Airport Health Accreditation of Airports Council International (ACI). We have also started to plan for the new normal ahead of us.

At the beginning of the pandemic, I did not realize the magnitude of the changes that it was going to bring into our lives. I notice lately that we are becoming increasingly impatient, about both travel and daily life restrictions. I hope a vaccine will give us back our normal lives, and that we will learn the difficult lesson that while we have much access to technology these days, we are still humans, with our frailties and limitations.