For Cristina Scocchia, the coats tell the story. Long before the 50-year-old took over as chief executive officer of Italy’s Illycaffe, she was CEO at another firm when a group of male visitors arrived for a meeting and proceeded to hand her their coats, assuming she was someone’s assistant.

Italy has progressed since then, but the coffee maker’s chief says gender bias and stereotypes still hamper progress for the nation’s female executives, reflecting a corporate landscape where women hold just a handful of the top jobs.

“I am always the exotic CEO,” Scocchia said in an interview for Bloomberg’s Italian-language podcast, Quello Che i Soldi Non Dicono, as she related the hurdles keeping more women from breaking through in what is still a highly male-dominated country.

While women everywhere have struggled to land top corporate jobs, the situation is particularly dire in Italy.

Just 3.9 percent of Italian firms had a woman as their CEO at the end of last year, according to a Deloitte report.

WRONG DIRECTION

Even worse, the country appears to be heading in the wrong direction — the most recent number is almost half as many as in 2021.

Italy’s underperformance looks even more stark when considering chief financial officer positions. Just 5.7 percent of Italian companies have a woman in that role, compared with a global figure of 17.6 percent.

Scocchia and Iveco Group NV chief financial officer Anna Tanganelli, another of the country’s rare top female executives, said Italians lack awareness that women have the same right to professional advancement as men — and that both genders bear equal responsibility for raising children and caring for aging parents.

Instead, that burden falls largely on the women in Italian families, and the state does little to help.

“Last but not least, the country needs more services to support parents,” Scocchia said.

Where Rome has weighed in — with landmark 2011 legislation imposing quotas for women on corporate boards — the effect has been dramatic. Italy is now among the top six in percentage of women serving on boards, with a share above 40 percent, the Deloitte report said.

The quotas “have been super-helpful in breaking the glass ceiling into boardrooms,” Tanganelli said on the podcast, adding that the legislation has been “the driving force behind the increase in the presence of women on management committees.”

However, both executives acknowledged that the quota system has been a double-edged sword for Italian women, leading to sometimes painful debates over merit.

BITTER MEDICINE

Scocchia called the quotas “a very bitter, but necessary medicine” to shake up the system and give women a foot in the door.

“The battle for gender equality can’t be won without them,” she said.

The measure may be giving women who would otherwise have been shut out a chance to show their mettle, and to demonstrate that they can bring a unique mix of skills to the table.

Tanganelli, who has defied the odds with her rise up the ranks in the uber-male auto industry, said women’s ability to fuse empathy, competence and inclusion is a trait most men cannot match, and one that shows itself in the form of grace under pressure during tense crisis periods like the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

We women “have an underlying resilience that helps overcome complexity, even in managing crisis and adversity,” Tanganelli said.