Ermanno Zanini

Midfielder, director, striker. The Eighties are roaring and Ermanno Zanini is wearing shorts and playing in the youth team first of Napoli then of Sampdoria. These are the days of Maradona è megl 'e Pelè. Despite his admiration for Platini, the young bomber was after all born in Naples to a Neapolitan mother and father from San Daniele in Friuli, the capital of prosciutto.

Sliding doors. In 1987, the run for goleador, imagining his face on Panini stickers, it all ends on board a Kawasaki motorbike on the coast of Naples. His ligaments are broken and so is his career. However, hadn’t it been for that accident, Zanini, born 1969, would have never become what he is now: one of the key figures in Mediterranean hospitality, with over 1200 men and women working beside him in so many luxury hotels under the Mytha hotel anthology brand, with locations in Rome, Anacapri, Uçhisar, Bodrum, Dubrovnik, Madrid and Datca. 

«It happened after the accident. My father sent me to New York as a distraction. I was staying at my uncle’s. I was doing physiotherapy, studying English and wandering about. Once back in shape, I worked as a waiter in a small Italian restaurant. The director of the Four Seasons turned up among the clients and asked me if I wanted to work for them. That’s how it started». Among the sparkling windows of the tallest hotel in Manhattan he started to learn the ropes of high class hotellerie, starting as a waiter but then working in various departments, his favourite being the kitchen. He kept this vice, and Andrea Migliaccio, executive at L’Olivo del Capri Palace (two Michelin stars) knows what he must do to make the general director happy.

Back to NY: after 9 months they handed him the room service in breath-taking suites. The inexperienced Italian guy has the right human touch to face even the most delicate service: «You need some very special qualities to embark an ecosystem where privacy is essential. You need attention, using the right words, as well as gestures, and grace».