About us: Social Media Selling

 

 

Freedata Labs was founded in 1993, specialising in Business Intelligence, market research, CRM, and as early as 2006 it became one of first European companies to realize that the Web is an open air CRM. A huge mass of information that can be moulded like all data banks but with exceptional added value: the content of this data bank is directly generated by people, real consumers using the Web to get information, chat and shop online.

This vision is what helps us develop strategies, Digital Marketing and Social Media actions and distribute value.

Freedata Labs’ value is based on human capital. The people working in our team boast specific skills - from marketing, psychology, statistic modelling, data analysis to the development of apps - but with important common traits. Our curiosity and attention towards new technologies and customs constantly drives us to interpret marketing challenges in different ways and to come up with new, original and effective solutions. Our zealous passion for metrics pushes us to work with an extremely strong focus on results.

 

 

 

 

 

Presenting Freedata Labs’ management team:

Valeria Severini - Chief Executive Officer

Valeria’s stubbornness and aptitude for research and innovation are the essential ingredients of her entrepreneurial persona. Her pillars are statistics, marketing and economics, while technology and the web are her passion. With 25 years of experience at the Bocconi University of Milan (where she studied and lectured statistics) and more than five years with Nielsen (in the days when only large mainframes existed), she still found a way to start a family and be a happy wife and mother. The early Nineties marked her turning point: she founded Freedata and started offering Business Intelligence and Data Mining services; a new profession that was still being invented and entailed learning from scratch. The first steps were strenuous and difficult, but then she took off. Valeria is obsessed with London, it is her reference benchmark for everything (except tiramisu) and in 2005 one of her dreams came true: she opened an office there to follow European projects. In London she first saw UGC and the Social web, a true marketing revolution. Her intuition was that Freedata had to be a part of this new scene and innovation became her keyword. She set up the labs to analyse the new metrics required to understand this innovative kind of marketing; an extraordinary adventure, albeit a tough one, but her stubbornness paid off... and since luck sometimes assists the daring…What else can we add? Valeria loves cooking (although she has is less partial to other household chores), modern art, oil painting and dreams to study art and digital photography one day.

Most played tune on her iPod: anything and everything U2, her all-time favorite band.
The book on her night table: Alda Merini’s poetry.
Favorite city: you already know!
Favorite quote: If someone is merely ahead of his time, it will catch up to him one day.
On Twitter: @ValeSev  

Cristiano Toni - Chief Operating Officer

Cristiano started his life kicking a ball, to then evolve over the years towards statistics and (finally) technology, but he never stopped loving his favorite team. Cristiano, who has been working in Freedata forever, not only experienced its transformation from a “small town” business to a company with a European profile, but he was also the director (and the halfback) in its transformation from a market research agency to a multiservice marketing agency. In the past ten years he has worked on Business Intelligence, Database Management, CRM, Web Analytics and Social Media Marketing projects without ever abandoning his first friend from his university days: SAS. In his role as Production Manager, in the past five years he has been following Freedata Labs’s most important projects with key clients like Microsoft, Sap, Ferrari, Nokia, Confcommercio, Salmoiraghi & Viganò… For six academic years he lectured Economic Statistics and Market Research at the Bocconi University of Milan where, thanks to the priceless contribution of his students, he learned exhaustively about the digital world and particularly Social Networks.

Most played tune on his iPod: Mio Zio (Carmen Consoli).
The book on his night table: The Countess (Rebecca Johns) ; The Indian Clerk (Leavitt David).
Favorite city: (since 22 May 2010) Madrid.
Favorite quote: If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same...  » […] you'll be a Man, my son.
On Twitter: @cristianotoni  

Alex Giorgi - Chief Information Officer

A nerd since birth who only partially evolved into a geek, Alex (aka alex178ita) started his career as a consultant in finance technology. He spent his first ten years working in the dealing rooms of the main European banks and in stock markets (when the open outcry system still existed... he was actually there during the last pit trading session of Borsa Italiana, Italy’s stock market). As a Project Manager he witnessed the birth of practically all of the technologically advanced dealing rooms of the leading Italian banks. He moved from what was already considered a pioneer web company in the Nineties, Webegg, with its advanced vision of the technological events that would change the world, to one of the leading multinationals in technology, HP. There he had the opportunity to convert to marketing, naturally with a focus on finance and then on small and midcap companies, where he followed the intelligence and business strategy development with the opportunity, once again, to travel and experience other cultures, first and foremost the Anglo Saxon culture, his true love. He joined Freedata Labs in 2006, contributing to the growth of the London offices by working closely with the Word Of Mouth Marketing Association and the Direct Marketing Association, participating in conferences and opening himself to the ideas and innovation that brought Freedata Labs to its social turning point, becoming a pioneer in integrating the social dimension with the marketing and business development aspect of companies. His passion for architecture and interior design have a lot to do with the hours he spent playing with his Lego as a child.

Most played tune on his iPod: Berzerk-Eminem.
The book on his night table: Jean Paul Sartre - La Nausée (and Peanuts and Diabolik comic books).
Favorite city: London, but anywhere else in the UK would be just fine, thank you very much!
Favorite quote: "A man’s freedom is measured by the intensity of his dreams"
On Twitter: @alex178ita  

Stefano Baldi - Client Director

Stefano started studying Economics after thinking of enrolling in Philosophy (with a specialisation in semiotics): a deliberate choice dictated by a book and brought to completion back in 1984. He started working for IBM with a fascination for information technology: those were the years of the first PCs and Stefano wanted to understand how one could to start out with a machine card (seen…) and end up with a production process. He has seen it happen but still hasn’t understood the process (because of his ignorance in anything involving physics)… Thanks to the experience accumulated in Italy, Europe and all over the world, he did however learn how to manage complex IT projects for clients (Iveco) and create a marketing database in IBM from scratch, becoming responsible for it at European level and one of its main references worldwide. He then integrated his professional experience in the Market Intelligence team, which he was in charge of for Italy and at a European level for specific projects. In mid-2012 he left the multinational group because of strategic differences and joined Freedata Labs, where he works in marketing, new business, client portfolio management and supervises the Italian Social Intelligence Group on LinkedIn.

Most played tune on his iPod: Wish you were here (Pink Floyd, an obsession...).
The book on his night table: Across the River and into the Trees (Ernest Hemingway).
Favorite city: Venice.
Favorite quote: The game ends five seconds after the referee blows the whistle.
On Twitter: @stefano_59