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Method, checks and corrections: Italy's top-40 CEO and CFO appointments

The appendix to Who picks Italy's top executives? Mostly the shareholder.

Appendix / Version 1.0

Written by
Matteo Muscio
Published
Appendix contents 11
  1. 01 Question and pre-registered tests
  2. 02 Universe and definitions
  3. 03 Results and sensitivity checks
  4. 04 State nomination mechanism
  5. 05 Early exits
  6. 06 Reliability
  7. 07 Benchmarks
  8. 08 Known limitations
  9. 09 Exits from the index included in the main specification
  10. 10 Corrections log
  11. 11 Sources

Question and pre-registered tests

Written before data collection (analysis plan, 19 Oct 2026): is the outsider share of CEO/CFO appointments rising, and do outsiders leave sooner? Kill tests: drop “rising” unless the year effect is positive at p < 0.10; drop “leave sooner” unless the log-rank p < 0.10 with at least 20 people per group. Both claims were dropped. The ownership finding was not pre-registered and should be read as exploratory, though it holds in every check below.

Universe and definitions

  • Main specification (historical constituents): every company while it was in the FTSE MIB, January 2019 to September 2026, including 14 companies that left the index (FCA is treated as Stellantis’s predecessor). Index membership rebuilt from Borsa Italiana monthly constituent files and FTSE MIB review reports.
  • Alternative specification (today’s 40): the 40 members on 16 October 2026, full window. Used in the LinkedIn post of 20 October 2026.
  • Roles: CEO (amministratore delegato, or the direttore generale where there is no AD) and CFO. Permanent appointments only; reappointments and interim roles excluded. Co-CEOs appointed together count as one event.
  • Insider: 18 months or more in the company or its group (including predecessors) immediately before the effective date. Outsider: everyone else, including non-executive directors moving into an executive role. Looser definition (Spencer Stuart style): people already in the group for 1-17 months, and returning former employees, count as insiders.
  • Ownership: largest shareholder at appointment: state (Treasury, CDP, local authorities), family or founder (or a single private holder of 20% or more), widely held, other.

Results and sensitivity checks

Specification Outsiders (95% range) Looser definition Year effect (GEE logit) State effect (GEE logit) State effect p, with sector State vs widely held Cluster bootstrap, state minus widely held Drop one company Drop low-confidence rows
Historical constituents (main) 46/80 (57%, 47%-68%) 46% 0.044 (p=0.681) 2.169 (p=0.002) 0.003 23/29 vs 3/12 (Fisher p=0.003) 32 to 86 pts 51 to 63 pts 45/78 (58%)
Today’s 40, full window 47/76 (62%, 51%-72%) 51% 0.077 (p=0.472) 1.7 (p=0.011) 0.026 24/30 vs 3/12 (Fisher p=0.0014) 34 to 88 pts 52 to 63 pts 46/73 (63%)

GEE = logistic regression with standard errors clustered by company (exchangeable correlation). Bootstrap: 2,000 resamples of whole companies.

State nomination mechanism

Of 14 CEO appointments at state-controlled companies, 11 came on a shareholder’s slate at the annual meeting and 9 in the spring nomination rounds led by the Treasury or CDP (2020, 2022, 2023, 2025, 2026; the 2022 and 2025 CDP rounds are a judgment call). 3 were designated by the shareholder mid-mandate.

Early exits

Appointments effective by September 2024 (full 24-month window), today’s 40: outsiders 7 of 35 left within 24 months, insiders 1 of 25. Fisher exact p = 0.123; Kaplan-Meier log-rank p = 0.21. Not significant at the pre-set threshold.

Reliability

A second coder, blind to the first coding, re-coded a random 20% sample (seed 20261019) from sources they found themselves: 17 of 17 agreed, Cohen’s kappa = 1.0. The sample is small; agreement on the full set is not measured.

Benchmarks

  • Consob, Report on corporate governance of Italian listed companies (2024 data): state-controlled companies are 12.8% of listed companies and 33.8% of market value; family-controlled 60.2% and 19.5%. Consob does not report where new executives come from.
  • Spencer Stuart, CEO Transitions in Europe: 41% outsider CEOs in 2024, 56% in 2025 across top European listed companies. On our calculation that change is not significant (p = 0.11). Direction only; definitions differ.

Known limitations

  • Index spells for Buzzi and Iveco are approximate; companies that joined and left between two half-yearly snapshots could be missing.
  • Open rows: BPER CFO 2019-2023 start date not found (assumed before 2019); Inwit CFO 2023 and Technoprobe CFO 2022 insider status unknown (excluded); Interpump CFO 2022 status unknown (excluded); Unipol CFO (insider) start date not confirmed.
  • Judgment calls: Banca Popolare di Sondrio CEO 2025 coded insider (BPER was the parent group at appointment); boomerang hires coded outsider in the main definition.
  • Exits are not failures: several came at the end of three-year mandates or in companies in crisis.

Exits from the index included in the main specification

Company In index Left because
Brembo 2019-01-01 to 2019-03-15 demoted
Banca Generali 2019-01-01 to 2019-06-21 demoted
Banca Generali 2019-12-23 to 2024-03-15 demoted
UnipolSai 2019-01-01 to 2019-12-20 demoted
Juventus FC 2019-01-01 to 2020-03-20 demoted
Salvatore Ferragamo 2019-01-01 to 2020-06-19 demoted
UBI Banca 2019-01-01 to 2020-08-04 delisted
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles 2019-01-01 to 2021-01-15 merged
Exor 2019-01-01 to 2022-09-16 moved listing
Atlantia (now Mundys) 2019-01-01 to 2022-11-28 delisted
ERG 2022-11-29 to 2024-12-20 demoted
CNH Industrial 2019-01-01 to 2023-12-15 moved listing
Banca Popolare di Sondrio 2024-03-18 to 2026-03-20 demoted
Pirelli & C 2019-01-01 to 2025-09-19 demoted
Interpump Group 2020-06-22 to 2025-12-19 demoted
DiaSorin 2019-01-01 to 2026-09-18 demoted

Corrections log

  • v1.0 (20 Oct 2026): first publication. Compared with the LinkedIn post of 20 Oct 2026 (47 of 75, today’s 40 only): added companies that left the index, added the Unipol CFO, closed reliability check.

Sources