“Milena, we’ve got a problem.” With a sunny Neapolitan spirit and an engaging, energetic smile, Milena Nacchia remains unfazed: “A problem? I’d rather say it’s an opportunity – otherwise, I wouldn’t have a reason to exist…” The drawer of this 31-year-old engineer’s desk, Head of Manufacturing Quality Control at Leonardo’s Campi Bisenzio site, seems brimming with solutions – or at least with innovative ideas. In just a few years, these ideas have led her to take on roles of increasing responsibility. Today, she leads a team of about 25 people – and she’s one of the youngest in the group. Her team oversees quality control, which includes incoming inspection, assembly checks, and quality improvement. “We verify the quality of the materials used in our production processes, inspect what is assembled to ensure it aligns with the production flow, and we’ve introduced a quality control phase aimed at reducing recurring issues, improving process efficiency, and containing costs,” explains Milena.
Her passion for STEM subjects has always gone hand in hand with a natural inclination for management. “If you want to manage something, you need to understand it first,” she says. After earning a Master’s degree in Management Engineering from the University of Salerno, and writing her thesis on industrial process automation at the Cork Institute of Technology in Ireland, Milena first worked in Nola (Naples, Italy), in a company specialising in the construction and maintenance of trains. She then fulfilled what she calls her “lifelong dream”: joining Leonardo to work not only in a mechanical engineering environment but above all in a high-tech Italian industry leader.
She succeeded in 2019, thanks to a hackathon organised by the Politecnico di Milano in collaboration with Leonardo. During the two-day event, she acted as the team leader in the development of a self-driving prototype. Even though her team didn’t win, Milena was promptly contacted by Leonardo for an interview in Pomezia (Rome, Italy). There, she worked for four years building an industrial engineering organisational unit. “The greatest satisfaction during that time was contributing to the site’s achievement of EMAR 145 certification for aircraft maintenance capabilities.” In 2023, she was appointed to her current role in Campi Bisenzio, moving from managing a team of three to one of around 25 people. “I was entrusted with responsibility, able to implement a series of changes and, most importantly, recruit new talent. Today,” Milena concludes, “I see confirmation of my choice every single day: Leonardo continues to invest in young people, offering them real opportunities for growth. The key is knowing how to seize them.”