"I 'm a very simple person"

Cosimo Fadda is the first winner of the DIY Retail Legacy Award. The award was presented to him yesterday evening at the 10th Global DIY Summit in Rome. Cosimo Fadda has made the company Cfadda, founded in 1818, what it is today: the leading DIY retailer in Sardinia.

In 1970, he brought the DIY store idea to Sardinia as an extension of the traditional hardware store, based on ideas he had brought back from trips to Germany and France in particular, and set up a chain of twelve locations there. Twelve years later, he opened Italy's first self-service store for DIY products and introduced the barcode at the same time. "If the big players can do it, so can we" - quoted Marco Orlandelli, the evening's laudator and managing partner of garden center supplier Organizzazione Orlandelli. He emphasized the values according to which the now 84-year-old Cosimo Fadda has managed his company, which he has now passed on to the fifth generation of the family: passion, integrity, commitment, modesty. Fadda co-founded the Italian DIY trade cooperation Bricolife in 2009. CFadda has been a member of the international DIY association Edra/Ghin since 2013.

"I am a very simple person," said the visibly moved award winner in his speech. Family, honor and people are important to him. "The award goes to my family and the people who work for us," he said.

The Edra/Ghin association has decided to change the Global DIY Lifetime Award to the DIY Retail Legacy Award - because it fits better with the DEI strategy (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion), said Inaki Maillard, chief organiser of the summit, in his introduction. The aim was to recognise companies that achieve something special at a local level. "Size is really not important," said Maillard. Edra Managing Director John Herbert, who was expressly thanked by the evening's award winner for his friendship, said of Cosimo Fadda: "He is the most passionate, emotional person I have ever met."