GIMO - a Master’s Programme for the automotive managers of the future
The partnership between Volkswagen Group Italia and Ca' Foscari University of Venice aims to train professionals able to combine different skills.
GIMO – Gestione e Innovazione della Mobilità (mobility management and innovation): this is the name of the new Master’s programme at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, in partnership with Volkswagen Group Italia. The agreement was officialised today in the Italian city, in the presence of university Chancellor Michele Bugliesi and Massimo Nordio, CEO of Volkswagen Group Italia. Conceived and developed by the Centre for Automotive and Mobility Innovation (CAMI) – a research structure within the Venetian university’s Department of Management– the Master’s programme aims to train new, multi-skilled professionals to meet the new requirements of the automotive sector.
The educational programme will therefore focus on integrating different skills, such as in Economics and Management, as well as competences in urban planning and in development and planning of sustainable systems. Six highly interdisciplinary modules are planned: Mobility, Management, Technology, Tools, Opportunities and Experiences – which in turn are divided into 23 courses and internships. Teaching will be constantly kept up-to-date following relation to the emerging trends and there will always be contact between the students and the most advanced business enterprises.
The experts trained in the Master’s Programme will be able to understand the needs of the various stakeholders of the new mobility systems, acting as mediators between different contexts with the ability to see new ways of coordination and new business models, paying particular attention to sustainability. The GIMO Master’s Degree will be hosted by Ca’ Foscari Challenge School. Volkswagen Group Italia will support the programme for the first three years with scholarships, with the possibility of carrying out project works at its own structures and with the contribution of its management in developing educational contents.

“We can’t – and we mustn’t – confine ourselves to cars. We have a great responsibility, which comes from our position, from the current and future scenarios, and above all from our values,” stated Massimo Nordio, CEO of Volkswagen Group Italia. “We intend to invest on education and to raise the managers of the future.”
“At the moment, the ability of the different actors to integrate know-how and to coordinate their own actions, in other words to ‘manage’ the ‘development’ of the sustainable mobility in a harmonious way, is strongly penalised by the belonging of the experts of the automotive industry and of the mobility to communities that find it very difficult to interact. For example, the actors of the automotive industry on the one hand, and urban planners, planners of mobility systems, service providers and other similar figures, on the other hand”, explains Francesco Zirpoli, Scientific Director of CAMI and Coordinator of the Master’s Programme. “We are sure that this Master’s Programme will create significant value for its students and contribute to the development of a culture for an actually sustainable and accessible future mobility”.
“Our mission is to invest in qualified education, in order to train professionals able to face the new global challenges,” stated Michele Bugliesi, Chancellor of Ca' Foscari University of Venice. “The GIMO Master’s Programme was created with this goal and deals with the current and future issues of the automotive industry. It focuses on an interdisciplinary education and approach and paying particular attention to sustainability, which has been a central element in the policy of the University for more than a decade. These two intertwine complementary disciplines that are enriched by the valuable partnership with Volkswagen Group Italia.”
Volkswagen Group Italia’s attention for specific management positions, aligned with a new concept of mobility, is not new. The role of Future Mobility Manager was already created in 2018: a strategic choice in order to deal with the challenges of the future, to support the spreading of new technologies and to facilitate the development of the new mobility services.