Romano is now also chief network, operations and wholesale officer of the parent company, TIM announced this morning.
The company said of her predecessor in the network and operations job, “Stefano Siragusa’s key manager appointment is withdrawn at the same time”. It is not yet clear where Siragusa is going.
But TIM confirmed to Capacity this morning of Romano: “I can confirm to you she is still CEO of Sparkle.” Romano herself has not yet responded to Capacity’s request for more information.
That statement from TIM’s press officer means Romano will be doing two jobs – CEO of Sparkle as well as her new role, chief network, operations and wholesale officer of TIM.
That gives some much-needed stability to Sparkle. Romano was named as CEO of Sparkle in August 2020, which means she has already exceeded the life expectancy of many of the previous holders of the job.
Software engineer Romano joined the TIM group four years ago, on 1 July 2018, when she was hired after a 20-year career at Ericsson – working in Rome until 2009 and then in Stockholm and Santa Clara.
For her last year at Ericsson she was general manager of its packet core and identity management unit, working on network slicing and distributed cloud at the edge, with a team of 3,000 driving the evolution of packet core to 5G.
At Sparkle two years ago, she took over from Mario di Mauro, who had lasted 17 months. Romano was the ninth CEO of Sparkle in ten years.
Di Mauro took over in March 2019 from Riccardo Delleani, who had lasted only 11 months. Delleani took over when Alessandro Talotta was hired by rival company Retelit in April 2018.
Capacity calculated two years ago the average time anyone had the Sparkle CEO post between 2010 and 2020 at just 13 months. Romano’s continuance in the role means that average is extended significantly.
In May 2022 Romano was elected chair of the ITW Global Leaders Forum (GLF), an organisation of industry leaders that is supported by Capacity. In that, she will play a pivotal role in continuing to realise the collaborative work and strategic vision of the GLF’s members, who include many of the largest international ICT service providers carriers globally.
TIM also said that Siragusa will leave the group by mutual agreement to take up new professional opportunities.
“We give Stefano Siragusa our heartfelt thanks for the important work done and for the particularly significant results achieved, as well as for the remarkable managerial contribution made in the interests of the company and the Group,” said the statement.
