The Cavagna Group was founded in 1949 by Paolo Cavagna and his children. Today, Cavagna is a global company with more than 1,000 employees in Europe, Asia, South America and Africa, as well as a 25-person operation in North America. But through all that growth, The Cavagna Group remains a family-owned company and major decisions within the company are reached by consensus.
The group consists of 11 vertically integrated production companies in Italy and seven others spread across five continents. The group sells in more than 145 countries through a distribution network consisting of 15 fully owned additional distribution companies.
Cavagna’s mission statement says, “Starting from innovation, wherever gas is the integral part and provides energy for everyday life, there will be the technological and productive commitment from Cavagna Group. Comprehensive one-stop solutions for each type of gas to promote safe and functional utilization in all applications.”
The company is now in its third generation of family ownership. “Strategic roles are still in the hands of family members,” says Miriam Cavagna, director of marketing and communication. “There’s a consistency in running the company based on unwritten family principles that stress reinvesting in the company.”
The company even codified the business role for future family members, where each family member signs a family employment policy that addresses how to include members of the third generation in the business, establishing guidelines for all and pre-requisite qualifications. If family members qualify to join the company, they are assigned mentors within the organization to help understand their role.
“I guess we each feel an obligation to improve the business,” says Miriam Cavagna. “It doesn’t matter what our titles are. If your name is Cavagna, you give just a little bit more.”
Guided by the same pillars and tenets that Paolo founded the company on 75 years ago, the Cavagna Group is well-positioned to make the next 75 years as productive as the first.
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