Giuseppe Belpiede, attended both St. Stephen’s School in Rome and the International School of Milan ISE, co-founded the new networking app Stellup with his brother Vincenzo Belpiede. As Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at Stellup, Giusseppe covers product develpment, content and analytics.
Brothers Giuseppe Belpiede (left) and Vincenzo Belpiede (right) completed the IB Diploma Programme at St. Stephen’s School in Rome, Italy.
What is your role at Stellup and what is your day to day work like?
My official role at Stellup is that of CMO, however as we are in the early stages of the company I take care of several topics including product management, content, analytics and also sales. My day to day work varies a lot, as our needs might change from week to week. Because of this, it is highly important to carefully plan each week in advance, apart from having a more medium-long term strategy.
To help with this, every Sunday I write down the most important priorities and assign myself and our other team members tasks. Also every night before going to bed I check to make sure my tasks are correctly prioritised. Every morning when I wake up I try to answer any quick questions with my team. After that I try to complete a first important deliverable, with no distraction, and then I do my first round of emails check and replies at morning. My day then follows with few calls with high schools (focusing on reaching out to more IB partners globally now), organizing sales material.
When I need to work on product road map and features I try to leave my day completely free from any other tasks, so I can better brainstorm and talk with my team. Finally twice or three times a week, I take a break and go for a football game.
What do you remember most about being an IB student?
The TOK essay, which initially I did not have high consideration, however was very interesting to complete. I have been very grateful to have taken 4 higher level exams, including mathematics and physics. I felt overly prepared when I joined my BSc in economics in the UK. I can say, generally IB students were more prepared, and with better international upbringing than the majority of A-level graduates.
What has been the biggest change in your life since becoming part of a startup?
I have been always part of startups so professionally I’m used to the high speed and craziness. However the biggest challenge was leaving the comfortable professional life where I was earning a big salary at Rocket Internet, while enjoying many benefits that I still see now as a founder of Stellup. You are responsible for the company 24/7, and have to go through many tasks (sometimes very boring ones) to get stuff going.
What is the best part of working with your brother? (And what is most challenging!)
The best part is that I trust him fully. I know we do not have to fight about business details. The challenging part is that after many discussions each month, we are often both tired and can easily forget we are partners as well as brothers. I believe it is crucial to totally separate our professional and personal lives.
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