Founder, President and CEO of GVM Care & Research, Ettore Sansavini has worked in the private healthcare sector since 1962, first in various jobs, then in positions of responsibility.
In 1973 he took over the management of Villa Maria healthcare facility in Cotignola (in the province of Ravenna), now Maria Cecilia Hospital, aiming at high specialty cardiovascular activities, using innovative technologies and methods and taking advantage of specialists of international renown. In October 1979 the first private Italian cardiac surgery pole was established in the Cotignola facility, fruit of his intuition and determination.
After having acquired a portion of the shares of Villa Maria, in 1989 Sansavini obtained the absolute majority of the healthcare facility’s stocks through the intervention of a merchant bank.
In subsequent years he created a Group with central headquarters in Lugo, in the province of Ravenna, which within a decade became one of the most important Italian health networks, widely distributed over several Italian regions - Emilia Romagna, Tuscany, Liguria, Piedmont, Puglia and Sicily - and ambitious projects abroad also, in France, Poland and Albania. The management methodologies tested successfully in the parent company in Cotignola are applied within the various Group facilities.
Already towards the end of the Nineties the Villa Maria Group, today GVM Care & Research, became the leading group in Italy in the cardiac surgery sector as regards number of cases carried out (around 15 percent of the total) and the only one with an organisation over the entire national territory, in the North, in the Centre and in the South.
In 1995 Sansavini received the Medal of the Presidency of the Republic bestowed by the international scientific committee of Pio Manzù Centre, and the following year the Grand Officer Cross of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
In 1999 he was a finalist for the “Entrepreneur of the Year” award in the Finance sector, “for the innovative and dynamic use of financial leverage in support of the entrepreneurial idea”.
In 2003 he won the “Romagnolo of the year” award from the “Famiglia Romagnola” association. Still in 2003 Sansavini decided to expand GVM Care & Research’s sphere of activity to the wellness sector, acquiring the management of Terme di Castrocaro, including the Grand Hotel and a health and wellness centre.
There have been other acquisitions in the production and services sectors over the years, including Eurosets, the biomedical company in Medolla, in the province of Modena, which manufactures biomedical devices and currently owns 35 patents.
Ettore Sansavini is currently a member of the National Aiop (Italian Association of Private Hospitals) Executive Committee, Coordinator of the Aiop High Specialisation-High Complexity Commission, member of the Health Commission of Confindustria Emilia Romagna, as well as a member of several other financial and social organisations and associations.
Intuition, enterprise, courage: entrepreneurial qualities that allowed him to attain unimaginable goals. He is one of the first supporters in Italy of healthcare management studies between public and private healthcare. Because of his innovative ideas, he has been asked to speak at some prestigious Italian universities, including Bocconi University in Milan.
Search for integration between public and private healthcare, creation of departments equipped for highly specialised disciplines where public healthcare is lacking them, management control systems aimed at the attainment of efficiency, organisation of the facilities at the levels of the best international hospitals: these are the key points that have led Ettore Sansavini and GVM Care & Research to attain maximum results.