The high-flyer

Gioia Bozzato, as ADC's managing director, is ostensibly concerned with opening up the club further to increasingly appeal to designers, photographers, illustrators, architects, filmmakers, musicians, digital creatives and strategists, as well as attracting new members from other fields and from other regions such as French-speaking Switzerland. "The ADC space should become more of a meeting and discussion place," she believes. Therefore, she always strives to transform the space through numerous exhibitions, readings and events. "This also benefits numerous partners and sponsors," she adds.

It all started when she joined GGK Küsnacht as an advertising assistant after graduating from high school. Relatively soon after that, Gioia Bozzato seized the opportunity to present the campaign developed for GGK in Switzerland for IBM in Paris with Remy Fabrikant. They won the European budget with it, whereupon a team was put together to form "GGK International" to run the European campaign. "That was my start: GGK," summarizes Gioia Bozzato briefly. By the way, Gioia means happiness (joy), after which this start also sounds a bit. But there is a completely different factor behind Gioia Bozzato's career: taking luck by the horns. For not only is Bozzato's curriculum vitae one of continuous development and movement, she has also not made herself comfortable in her positions and has taken every change as an opportunity for a new beginning.

The plan was only to do a summer internship....

Before joining GGK, Gioia Bozzato studied political and social sciences in Geneva, where she also grew up - born in Zurich but raised in Geneva. She planned to study "Hautes Etudes Internationales" for four years with the idea of perhaps entering the diplomatic field. Therefore, at least, she chose this direction of political science. "But I actually didn't really know what I would end up doing," she adds. In sociology, she studied people's behavior toward communication. "I still found that exciting," she says, but then wanted to start a summer internship at an advertising agency first. After a few applications, she landed an interview with Hermann Strittmatter (founder of GGK Zurich) through Paul Gredinger (then GGK). Strittmatter didn't want to give her an internship, but he did want to hire her permanently right away. So she dropped out of her studies, with the idea of maybe doing it for a year or two. The fact that she put her studies on hold so fearlessly was not only well received: "My father, of course, didn't like it at all," she laughs. The message from home would then have been clear: "Then you have to take care of yourself now." But this message would also have been the right one, which is why she tackled the whole thing.

Then everything came differently than planned: After a year in Paris for GGK, she came back to Switzerland and joined Euro RSCG (now Havas). An offer for a McDonald's mandate from McCann brought her back to Geneva. Heinz Flückiger (former managing director of McCann Switzerland) encouraged her a lot during this time, Bozzato emphasizes. Other agencies followed, and the consulting portfolio of clients and products she handled grew until son Guy was about two years old. During this phase, she learned through a business colleague that the Gemeinnützige Frauenverein Zürich was looking for a communications and advertising specialist. The managing director at the time had also started her career at GGK Zurich. So had been her supervisor Hermann Strittmatter. This had an impact: "As soon as we met, it was an immediate fit, we have the same sensibility for graphics and branding - we went through the same school," says Gioia Bozzato. She then spent seven years as communications and marketing manager at Gemeinnütziger Frauenverein Zürich. During this time, she was able to build up the entire communications structure of the private provider of daycare places, both internally and externally. "Since I was a mother of a two-year-old child myself during this time, this task was also very interesting to me," Bozzato explains. She had also placed her child in the crèche herself and was thus able to combine work and private life very well.

Manager of ADC Switzerland
 
When Frank Bodin asked her two years ago if she would like to take over the management of ADC, it made her think for a moment. Bozzato had already worked with some members of ADC in the 15 years before. "You've been through a lot of things together that bond," Bozzato says. With Frank Bodin and Rémy Fabrikant, too, the collaboration had always worked very well, so the request would not have been a coincidence. When the tour of the new space took place on the same day, the decision was made. "I thought, surely something can be done there. And I like to get things done," she says, explaining the decision. After joining the management team two years ago, Gioia Bozzato remodeled the space, and shortly thereafter the first judging and gala began. Then everything went pretty fast, "right into the deep end," as she says: starting with the inauguration of the gallery, to Frank Bodin's exhibition, to Bozzato's first idea to exhibit the submissions for the Young Creatives Award in the gallery - after the Youngster competition was newly established at ADC. In addition, there have already been numerous exhibitions, a book vernissage of Hans Peter Riegel's biography of Beuys or the screening of Alberto Venzago's film "Gergiev - a certain madness." "That was very exciting because it was different," Bozzato recounts. Especially because the space lends itself very well to precisely such events. And this is precisely the opening that ADC has approached with its new positioning. "The program is not just advertising," Bozzato emphasizes. In addition, she is now also working on involving French-speaking Switzerland more. This means that a press release in German always comes from Gioia Bozzato also in French. "Because French-speaking Switzerland is also part of it," she emphasizes.  

This also applies to the current project number one, digitization: Digitization includes not only the new ADC website, but also a new web-based submission process including digital judging for the annual ADC Awards and, starting this fall, also for the Young Creatives Award. ADC's social media presence has also been revamped to become an inspiring platform for the creative industry. For the first time, all works awarded by the ADC 2014 have been available as an iPad app since a few weeks. And for those who prefer to view and keep the 196 award-winning works in print, the new ADC 14 book can also be ordered in classic book form. A few computer strokes are all it takes to have an elegant print-on-demand solution delivered to one's home or office. Currently, Gioia Bozzato is finalizing the French website. And the ADC/bsw creative school is also being held jointly on the ADC premises.

Always active, rarely a break
 
Gioia Bozzato has just spent a week in Antalya. She, who is otherwise permanently busy and rarely gets a chance to rest, leans back relaxed and tanned: "I have all the time in the world," she says dryly but warmly. Even though her job demands a lot of her time and commitment, she is still interested in learning new things. Because in her positive vibe and strong urge to tackle, it is then very difficult to stop and enjoy the moment, she says. But "you only live once," she adds, "hey, get up in the morning and think; nice!". She tries to live this side again more consciously: "We have a great luck here, but do we perceive it?".

Curiosity has accompanied her throughout her life. There is always something exciting in everyday life, says Bozzato, always new experiences. Today, for example, she and her assistant Samira were discussing the fact that young people communicate via voice message on WhatsApp or via Snapchat. "I'm not from that generation anymore. We still text each other very classically in High German," she says enthusiastically. Now, she says, she is slowly starting to reply in Swiss German. "I think it's funny," she adds. Still, she doesn't often have time for such shenanigans. I'm convinced that children need their parents more and more the older they get," she says, countering the view that children need a lot of care from their parents, especially in the early years. She is now convinced that it is possible to work 100 percent with a baby. A baby doesn't absorb much yet - "it needs you to nurse. Body warmth and security are important. So Guy certainly didn't suffer in the nursery," she adds. Now, however, Guy is getting older. Now there are more and more exchanges. So he has questions or wants to discover new things together, experience. "The most wonderful thing I've done in my life," she says. Currently, he is just on vacation with his father, which is also nice for once. "But I'm already starting to miss him," she says thoughtfully.

Ursina mason (Text & Photos)