With latest trends and requirements, leadership has come a long way. Industries currently require leaders with long-term vision and the ability to pivot company culture during difficult times. With the inevitable onset of COVID-19, leaders had to be more aware of the changes and introduce holistic approaches to cope with the unprecedented times. Leadership can be a daunting task but with disruptive approaches, leaders can thrive during the most difficult of times. “I am a master in challenging the established rules through disruptive thinking,” asserts Giacomo Benvenuti (CEO and Founder of ABCD Technology)
A long-term vision strategist, Giacomo invests in disruptive approaches to achieve maximal global impact. Under this direction, his deep-tech companies have invested largely in developing technology which go far beyond the state of the art. Giacomo believes that challenges at the current level is not to reach sales with optimized offensive tactics but setting a defensive position on the long term to limit access to competitors on identified blue-ocean markets.
Incorporated in 2006, ABCD Technology provides disruptive equipment for deposition of complex 3D-shaped multi-element thin films, and provides complete and optimized solutions to the highly challenging thin film field. Being at the helm of the company, Giacomo plays many roles, be it creating vision, solving problems, or optimizing work and performances. He also switches between the roles of CEO, CTO, management, finances and many more humble tasks. Talking about his multifaceted roles, Giacomo asserts, “When you are an entrepreneur, you are a jack of all trades and must be on all fronts. This is a quite different position perspective than being hired in a large company as are the needed skills.”
During an interesting conversation with Mirror Review, Giacomo spoke about his leadership and his company in an elaborate manner. Here are the snippets from the fascinating conversation.
What are the services offered by your company?
ABCD Technologies provides unique equipment, Sybilla, for multi-element and multifunctional oxide thin film growth, while its sister company 3D-Oxides deals in new materials and R&D applications. These materials could replace or complement III-V or II-VI semiconductors as they display a plethora of multi-functional properties covering a huge gamut of possible applications in the “More than Moore” vision. However, they are far from being implemented at the production level due to their difficulty to grow.
What exclusivities distinguish ABCD Technologies from its competitors?
Sybilla equipment provides at least 3 disruptive features:
- Possibility to achieve multi-element thin films over large surfaces (450 mm wafers now, but can easily upscale) with good uniformity in thickness and composition (+/-1%) even for multi-element thin films;
- Combinatorial approach facility (meaning the possibility to achieve different material properties and architectures on the same batch) to accelerate R&D by shortening material properties and process optimization time and by improving flexibility for integrating different functionalities on the same chip with improved miniaturization and at lower production costs; and
- Additive growth (a sort of 3D-printing) of thin film materials with very added value functionalities, much further than just mechanical or conductivity ones available today.
These features have enabled 3D-Oxides and other customers to achieve outstanding results in a short time, with other results in new materials.
Please walk us through the notable achievements in your illustrious career?
Most of my achievements can be considered impossible even with substantial budgets which we have been lacking all these years. We can list Sybilla equipment development with top state of the art performances and mention top level multifunctional materials at the forefront of research. We can also tag along our newly patented model for blockchains and Physical Unclonable Functions for SSI (Self-Sovereign-Identities) for objects.
How has your leadership changed with time? How has the pandemic affected your leadership?
Most people have short term comprehension ability but lack foresight to comprehend in the medium-long term. They can optimize but cannot anticipate and adapt easily. Currently, it is hard to adapt to ongoing changes as execution is not enough. Highly rewarding businesses mean being at the right place at the right time and require strong anticipation and execution. Previously, it was hard to convince without a strong portfolio. Although I miss monetary back-up for independence, many accomplishments have strengthened my conviction and determination to go the ‘anticipation’ way.
Covid experience has taught us that if things are going fast, lack of anticipation can have disastrous effects and result in severe costs and “just-in-time” can fall short with many possible mistakes and resource wastage. Fortunately, Covid was not very lethal. Currently, things are moving faster with increasing incertitude. With huge technological impacts such as AI accelerating everything, people will not only foresee opportunities but also changes and threats in the upcoming days. Analogy with Covid experience is straightforward to me.
What changes has the pandemic introduced in the industry?
Thin film technology is a key asset in a wide range of market segments, ranging from semiconductors, renewable energies and much more. It enables both new extremely high added value functionalities, strong miniaturization and optimized resources management with mass production and has been the most impacting technology of the last 5 decades. Consequently, the shortage of chips in the past few years due to Covid has impacted a wide range of businesses with severe consequences and delays in delivery.
What are the upcoming services lined up for the future?
ABCD Technology is developing a non-incremental Physical Unclonable Function with 3D-Oxides which would enable more security and miniaturization for connected objects on the IoT, coupled with a new patented blockchain model providing strong SSI (Self-Sovereign-Identities). In the long-term, it could simply lead to a global Digital Twin updated in real time at the scale of the future Internet of Everything. Our SSI for objects is under development, but this product could totally change our world by revolutionizing how humankind will manage trust in a totally transparent, measurable, and certified way, and will potentially allow us to remove any intermediaries which can manipulate trust to their own advantage.
Giacomo Recommends: “Lord of the Rings”—a simple hobbit with no superpowers but determination and resilience against adversity, greed, and power-corruption with remarkable conclusion.
Read full: The 10 Revolutionary Business Leaders, 2023
