Born in Legnano (MI) in 1966, she is married with three children: Andrea, Anna and Tommaso.
She graduated in Foreign Languages and Ameriocan Literature at the University of Milan, before completing a Master’s degree in Marketing Communications and Public Relations at ISFOR, and attending numerous training and refresher courses in Italy and the United States in the field of Marketing and Institutional Communications.
Her experience in the public relations and marketing sectors began while she was still at university, with her first job in the market research office of La Rinascente department stores, and subsequently as a member of the Organising Committee for the Italia ’90 soccer world cup tournament. In 1991, she began her career with Microsoft Italia, where she moved through a series of increasingly strategic roles –as Central Marketing Director–until she reached the role of Director Corporate Social Responsibility and National Development.
On July 1st 2014 she was promoted and she enlarged her responsibilities to become Director of National Development for Western Europe, covering 12 Countries. In this role, Roberta drives the planning and execution of programs that will help demonstrate, internally and externally, that Microsoft is a global corporate citizen that works responsibly and applies its business acumen and technology expertise to serving communities in the local market. This assignment represents a natural evolution of her career in Microsoft and has helped her to establish important relations on an institutional level, participating in numerous projects with government, local bodies, and national associations and organisations.
Since September 1st 2016, she left the private sector to become Municipal Councillor for Digital Transformation and Citizens Services for Municipality of Milan, working directly with the new elected Mayor, Mr. Giuseppe Sala. In this new role her main objective is to leverage digital transformation to offer simpler and better digital services to all 1.5 million citizens in the city and let Milan become a lighthouse for innovation at international level.
In 2004, with the benefit of a background that had led her to take a front-line interest in the question of equal opportunities in Italy, Roberta promoted the creation of futuro@lfemminile, Microsoft’s social responsibility project, which she manages. The project, which seeks to develop women’s potential through technology, became an international practice for Microsoft World Wide and from January 2012 Roberta is part of an international task force on Gender Activities, in partnership with important international Public and Private Organization such as United Nation Women, UNESCO, ITU. This effort on Gender Gap evolved into the creation of Pink Cloud, which became one of the top project for pushing girls into STEM all across Italy, reaching thousands of young women. In 2016 this activity was connected to the worldwide commitment of Microsoft towards women and the result was the European edition of Makewhatsnext which reached 10.000+ girls offering in 27 Countries hundreds of digital trainings.
On March 8th 2010, on the occasion of International Women’s Day, Roberta Cocco was conferred a knighthood as Commendatore dell’Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana by President of the Italian Republic Giorgio Napolitano.
Roberta Cocco is also a free-lance Journalist, very active online and she writes on several women’s magazine and blogs, such as http://parla-con-noi-d.blogautore.repubblica.it/, the blog of the main Italian newspaper “La Repubblica” . She is also a contributor of the main independent digital blog “Che futuro!” She is active on twitter: @robi_cocco
