IMA receives the Leonardo Italian Quality Award 2015

Italian excellence in the world rewarded

During a ceremony held today in the splendid setting of the Palazzo del Quirinale, Alberto Vacchi, IMA’s Chairman and CEO, received from the hands of the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, the Leonardo Italian Quality Award 2015.

This award, which forms part of Italian Quality Day, was born on the initiative of the Comitato Leonardo (Italian Quality Committee) and is given annually to entrepreneurs whose companies have achieved particular success in international markets, becoming ambassadors of Italian excellence throughout the world.

After careful selection, the prize was awarded to IMA, recognizing it as a company with a strong commitment to innovation and a long-standing international presence. This approach has always been a distinguishing feature of our Group, resulting in a position of market leadership.

IMA’s commitment to technological innovation has always given it a strong competitive advantage: constant hefty investment in R&D (approximately 5% of consolidated revenues) underlies the Group’s expansion and its ability to create value. Suffice to say that the IMA Group owns more than 1,400 patents and patent applications in the world; it has more than 500 designers involved in product innovation and has launched several new machine models in recent years. A strong export orientation has always been another element of strong competitive advantage for IMA. Suffice it to say that the Group’s export share on average exceeds 90% of consolidated revenues.

Alberto Vacchi, IMA’s Chairman and CEO, has commented as follows:

“I am honoured to receive this important recognition, bearing witness to the international role that the Group has built up over the last fifty years or more and to the excellence of our technology, which is based on a strong commitment to developing more and more innovative solutions.”

The Comitato Leonardo, which is chaired by Luisa Todini, encompasses prominent personalities including entrepreneurs, artists, scientists and intellectuals. The founders of the Award include Confindustria (the Confederation of Italian Industry) and ICE (the Italian Foreign Trade Institute).