Paolo Marchegiani
Entrepreneur
The story of Paolo Marchegiani, CEO | Elettro 2000 TLC S.R.L.
My name is Paolo Marchegiani and I'm the CEO and sole shareholder of Elettro 2000 TLC S.R.L., a company with over thirty years of history and thirty-two people who work alongside me every day. We operate mainly in the healthcare sector: we build complex systems for hospitals, operating theatres, outpatient clinics and hospital wards. It's a field that demands precision, responsibility and speed. It's not unusual for administrations, from mid-October to the end of the year, to rush through everything they've put off, and that period becomes, for me, a constant whirlwind of deadlines, decisions and emergencies.
I started out professionally as an electrician. In the 1980s I was the lad with a screwdriver in hand, learning by watching, doing, and getting it wrong. Then, step by step, I had to transform: first technician, then team lead, now CEO. That journey wasn't a sudden climb, but a natural evolution, made of growing responsibilities and, above all, of people to lead.
Despite this growth, I always thought I was self-sufficient. That I could find my own way, decide, work out what to do. Then I came across Private Community.
I joined out of curiosity, thanks to a course on the four character traits run by Monica Passini. I was struck by the way that course shed light on parts of myself I'd never really considered. Digging deeper, I got to know Monica and Dario Castagna better, and that's how I came closer to the Community. From the very start I realised Private isn't just a group of entrepreneurs: it's a space where dialogue becomes growth, where other people's experience doesn't overwhelm you, but walks alongside you.
What I found in Private is something I hadn't found anywhere else. A safe, judgement-free place, where you can share successes and difficulties with people living the same pressures, the same responsibilities, the same doubts. An environment where you're not "the CEO who has to have all the answers", but simply a person on a journey.
Thanks to this ongoing dialogue, I've been through a profound change in recent years. Not just personal, but business too: turnover has doubled. Not because I'd set that as a target, but because I started improving my approach, my vision, the way I engage with things. The financial result came as a natural consequence.
One of the most important projects I've carried out thanks to Private is building our new company headquarters. For years I'd never given the office much thought: working with public authorities, I'd always done my best deals "out there", on other people's turf. Then something changed. I felt the need to create a real home for the business. So I bought a 6,800-square-metre plot of land and designed four industrial units, one of which will become our new headquarters: a thousand square metres of offices and operational space, ready by 2026. This project, which might otherwise have stayed in a drawer for years, found in Private the pace, the support and the continuity it needed to become real.
Another change, simpler on the surface but crucial for me, concerns my relationship with time and with my phone. For years, constant calls, messages and notifications made me anxious. Today my phone is silent: it doesn't buzz, doesn't ring, doesn't chase me. I still respond to everything, but on my own terms. I've taught people to get in touch not only with me, but with whoever in the company can actually help. That's given me back a peace of mind I didn't even know I'd lost.
My biggest achievement has been learning to give time a new kind of value. At 52, I've understood that the most precious asset isn't turnover, but quality of life. So today I plan my personal time first, and only then my working time. I'm passionate about music, concerts and theatre: in a year I go to ten shows and around fifteen concerts, some abroad too. I love travelling with my family, and I often turn the rewards I get from suppliers into travel opportunities, tying work to rewards that feed my wellbeing.
Private has helped me see something I used to overlook: that an entrepreneur doesn't grow only when their company's numbers grow, but when they improve the quality of their own life, their own ability to choose, to set their own direction.
The Mindset & Skillset Booster paths were a turning point. In those two intense days I began looking back to understand who I really was and why. I set down the first points of my vision, a vision that today, thanks also to Combine®, is clear, structured, and truly represents who I am and what I want to build.
This inner work also gave rise to a wish to give something back. I've started writing a book that isn't about celebrating myself, but that aims to help young people and entrepreneurs. In the same spirit, I'm planning the Elettro 2000 Academy, an initiative dedicated to young people entering the world of work, to fill the gap in direction, goals and motivation I see in the new generations.
Once you reach a certain point in life, you don't stop growing: you start giving back. And Private, for me, has been exactly that: a place to grow, to build, to question yourself, to imagine projects I'd never have had the courage to start on my own.
Today I know that when we improve ourselves, the people around us improve too. And when people are doing better, the business grows too, almost naturally. In that harmony which, deep down, every entrepreneur is looking for.