Arzignano’s Green Leather Managers are in demand
The first cohort of students to complete Arzignano’s Green Leather Managers course are almost all employed in the industry now.
This course, which launched formally in 2017, is part of Italy’s specialist technical institutions (ITS) programme, which students can join after completing high school. It combines classroom and workplace learning.
Arzignano’s leather cluster, il Distretto della Pelle, worked with the local authority, with an institution called Fondazione Cosmo in nearby Padua, leather research body the Stazione Sperimentale delle Pelli e delle Materie Concianti (SSIP) and business organisations Confindustria and Confartigianato to set up an ITS course specifically for a new, sustainability-focused generation of tanning industry managers.
In recent comments on the course, Fondazione Cosmo director, Roberto Gigliotti, said that an initial group of 20 students completed it in 2019 and, of those, 19, or 95%, are now employed in the industry in Green Leather Manager roles. The other person is currently pursuing further studies at university.
