Meet our Italian partner – Cecilia Spanu

Today we head to Italy to meet Cecilia Spanu, transformation coach, PCC ICF certified executive coach, founder of Innovation Colors and a Map & Match partner since 2021.

Her career is a series of transformations — first a manager in multinationals such as Kodak and Black & Decker, then a digital entrepreneur, then a transformation consultant. Cecilia has made change her engine and people her priority. For more than 10 years she has put coaching at the service of leaders and their teams, drawing on emotional intelligence, shared innovation and positive organisations.

Map & Match's distributor in Italy since 2024, she works every day to carry our approach across the Alps. Here she shares her view of the Italian coaching market, her method, and concrete examples of projects run with Map & Match.

"Change has always been my engine, but I learned that it can be very hard on other people. That is exactly where coaching earns its place."

From corporate life to coaching: a varied path

Manager, entrepreneur, then consultant and coach — your career is marked by change. What thread runs through it, and how has it shaped your approach to coaching?

The thread running through my three lives — manager, entrepreneur, then consultant and coach — has always been change. In 2004, after many years in multinational environments, I saw the Kodak story from backstage. I was marketing director for photographic film, and I watched at very close range the spectacular collapse in sales brought about by a disruptive technology. That experience made me realise that a company that cannot adapt is bound to disappear. It also made me understand that while change stimulates me, it can be very hard on others.

In my second life, I co-founded a digital communications agency with a few partners, helping companies talk to mothers, called Fattore Mamma, with an original and differentiating business model. That project changed my stance entirely: from a diligent employee I became an entrepreneur, discovering talents I had not suspected along the way — creativity, flexibility, and a feel for business and communication.

In 2014, a master's in coaching led me to my third and truest professional life: I founded Innovation Colors, and I now support managers and entrepreneurs through their own transformation, and that of their organisations.

Innovation at the heart of the work

Innovation Colors rests on pillars such as shared innovation, positive organisations and emotional intelligence. Why do those matter so much in your work?

When I founded Innovation Colors, after more than 20 years in very varied organisations — multinationals, family businesses, start-ups and more established structures — I realised that whatever the context, emotional intelligence is one of the key leadership skills. And that coaching can genuinely help develop it.

An important turning point was my training as a Chief Happiness Officer with the Italian institute for positive organisation. It gave me a solid theoretical frame and concrete tools for helping build positive organisations, whose aim is to combine economic performance with the well-being of the people in them.

From those first two pillars came the third foundation of my approach: shared innovation. In organisations, innovation does not come from one person, it comes from the collective. To innovate, you have to create the conditions in which that shared innovation can emerge.

Coaching in Italy

Where does coaching stand in Italy? Is it seen as a strategic lever for performance, or is it still mostly associated with managing crises?

Over the past few years I have seen the reasons behind coaching requests shift. It is no longer seen only as a way to "fix" someone who is struggling, but increasingly as a development lever for high-potential managers. Team coaching is starting to grow in Italy too, particularly to strengthen the effectiveness of teams facing strategic challenges.

Meeting Map & Match

How did you come across Map & Match, and how does the approach complement your work with organisations, teams and leaders?

I discovered Map & Match in 2021, through what looked like a chance encounter. Map & Match France, through the Bocconi University network, was looking for Italian coaches interested in trying out this new approach. Project after project, I realised how much the method resonated with my own.

In recent years we have focused particularly on development programmes for leadership teams, using Map & Match as a valuable ally in accelerating change. We built a team development method on four pillars: energy, skills, team coaching, and the link between data and action plan. I presented that method at the 2025 Learning Forum organised by Assolombarda in Milan. You can watch my talk here.

Putting the approach to work

Can you tell us about a concrete deployment of Map & Match?

One project I would particularly like to share is the one run with Haier Europe. In 2022 we started mapping and matching work with the leadership team of the Kitchen division. It made the team aware of certain patterns and of the points it needed to watch.

After that first step, the heads of global marketing and global R&D wanted to repeat the experience with their own teams. At their offsite, both teams identified where their energy comes from and where they are vulnerable. They then decided to commit to an experiential learning programme built on three key skills: trust, effective communication and feedback.
The programme ended in 2024 with a hackathon day bringing both teams together — a chance to celebrate the progress made and to shape concrete proposals for making the learning last.

"We built a team development method on four pillars: energy, skills, team coaching, and the link between data and action plan."

Her role as Map & Match's distributor

As Map & Match's distributor in Italy, what do you do to make the approach known and grow it in the Italian market?

After a long partnership, we became the official distributors of Map & Match for Italy in 2024. Alongside word of mouth, fed by our satisfied clients, we have run several initiatives in recent years to promote and grow the approach in the Italian market.

Every year we run a workshop for our clients, built around a strong theme from Innovation Colors' work. Three themes have run in recent editions: developing leadership teams, the dynamics of high-performing teams, and transformation journeys. The format combines a content session, a client's own account, and participatory activities.

As mentioned, in 2025 we also took part in the Learning Forum, a landmark event for HR professionals, with a talk entitled "The team of the best is not the best team: focus on Energy Skills™". It was a fine opportunity to connect with a great many companies, and it is now generating concrete business opportunities.

Finally, thanks to our expertise in digital communications, we regularly share the results of Map & Match projects on the Innovation Colors blog, LEARN TO LEAD, and on our social channels: LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.

Find out more:

• innovationcolors.it
• Cecilia Spanu on LinkedIn