Transforming Traumatic Events into Philanthropy

There are watershed moments that divide the memories of a life into a before and an after. For Matteo Morandi the moment occurred on 18 November 2021: his son Mattia, 17, had a motorcycle accident and ended up in hospital in near-death conditions. In coma for two months, and hospitalized for six, he had to undergo surgery 15 times and a year of rehabilitation. For Morandi, a long-time manager and CEO of Percassi Retail, it was like restarting from ground zero: “Everything was called into question,” he says today that his son is a medical student in Florence and Fondazione Morandi ETS is dedicated to celebrating the gift of a life returned and the second chance his family had with Mattia to give back to the local community, especially on health services. A life journey told in the autobiographical novel “Inattesa” (Unexpected), written with Lidia Labianca and published by Egea.

Very hard days and months when your son was hospitalized, what impact did they have on your life?

I would call it devastating. When those things happen, everything is called into question, but we immediately tried to transform the risk of losing our son into something positive. It was thate approach that led us to create the Morandi Foundation that deals with health care, school and sports to give back to the community what was given back to us after a year of fighting to bring our son back home from grievous injury. But to get through those months I had to scrape everything I had in me many times: you have to find the energy you don't expect to have and do it continuously. I didn't think I could be able to do it, it was a discovery.

And you had to reconcile everything with company duties.

Those were the months when we were emerging from the complicated years linked to Covid, among the most complex periods of my career. But the energy can be found if you look hard enough. And the years since 2022 have been the best ones: an unexpected traumatic event can have a positive impact when there is a reaction. Even when you think you've seen it all, you have to know how to turn the world's greatest fear, the death of one’s child, into something positive.

What is the key that made you turn the corner?

It's something you’ve got to find inside you, because in those moments you are completely alone and nothing prepares you to face the difficulties. There is no manual. It came naturally, the idea developed in a few hours: a foundation and a book. I don't know what went on in your mind, but in those moments you cling to anything. I clung to faith, but obviously to the professionalism and ability of the doctors: we had boundless faith in the people we met at San Gerardo in Monza. An incredible public hospital, with a fantastic medical team with world-class excellence.

You were a student at Bocconi University, what were the lessons you learned in overcoming unexpected difficulties like these?

I have always been an atypical student: versatile, curious, multidisciplinary and fond of contamination. In these three years, have a mind trained every day to face the unexpected and knowing how to manage uncertainties has helped me. I think that another thing that I have carried with me since the years at the university is the importance of the family: it has always been a crucial element in my life.

Fondazione Morandi was born on paper when you and your wife were in and out of your son’s intensive care unit. What’s its mission?

We work a lot on healthcare and on the training of doctors and nurses who deal with the management of major traumatic injuries and emergency surgery. We are focused on rehabilitation, with a group of physiotherapists with whom we will begin a path to support the recovery of those who cannot afford the costs of a good physical recovery program. And then we are launching an applied research project on hemorrhages.

The Foundation also deals with school and sports.

In the world of education, we support with scholarships teenagers who have little economic possibilities and want to start a career as doctors or nurses. We help them get into medical school, which is very difficult. And we focus on, due to the commitment of my daughter who is a professional volleyball player, playing in Serie A1 for Uyba Busto Arsizio. We launched Tatticamente, a project for the creation of a medical-scientific protocol to train young students with specific learning disabilities (DSA, the Italian acronym) in sports. Something unique in Europe: we have made two neuropsychiatrists available and we are working with about sixty coaches to create training methodologies for those kids who have a completely original way of understanding, intending, reading, writing. A gigantic project. 

How do you reconcile the two professions you now have?

It has become a mission now, but my wife Paola also gives me a huge help and we have a technical-scientific committee within the foundation that supports us in our decision process. The foundation was built with a long-term approach, we have friends who help us and everything is done completely free of charge: all the fundraising we do goes entirely to finance the projects. We are all volunteers: a huge commitment that gives immense satisfaction.

Do all the proceeds from the book also go to support the foundation?

All the proceeds and all the royalties coming from Egea are given to the Foundation. We have a big project in the works: the construction of Casa Morandi, a physical building that we would like to build in the Municipality of Monza to be able to provide our services free of charge. The goal is to integrate everything we do, from rehabilitation to training and community support, in a highly functional and synergic context. We are working on it with the Lombardy Region and with the San Gerardo Hospital of Monza. We want this House to also be used for pain therapy and palliative care for pediatric patients, to help families that must deal nwith their children being in terminal care. An extremely painful and sensitive issue that is difficult to address.