Action 2 Impact Podcast Season 1 EP.5 Our New Rotary International President Francesco Arezzo

Time to get to know our new Rotary International President Francesco Arezzo, and his aid John De Giorgio. Find out what it's like to drop your whole life, move, quit your job, and become the RIP in less then 72hrs.

WOW what a story, and BTW he brought his best friend John and his family with him too.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Hi there, everyone. I'm Gwen Jones and welcome once again to the Action to Impact podcast, the weekly podcast where I introduce you to amazing, wonderful, fantastic people from all over the world that are turning their actions into impact. And this week I have a very special show because it is my honor, my humbling honor to introduce you to our brand new and really, really brand new Rotary International President. Francisco Arezzo is joining me today. Now, if that's a name that's brand new on your lips, probably because we had the marvelous Mario for a year and a half. And through circumstances beyond anyone's control, he was not able to become our Rotary International President for 2025-2026. But Francisco was was willing to step up and he decided to bring his longtime friend and friend of the podcast, Don DiGiorno, as his aide. And guess what? John said, Gwen, would you like to get to know Francisco? Would I like to get to know Francisco? Not only me, but the rest of the Rotary world that hears my voice would definitely like to get to know Francisco. So sit back, get a cocktail or a cup of coffee or a wonderful glass of water. I want your ears ready to meet your brand new Rotary International President. That's right, Francisco's here to join me and I'm so So glad you're here to join us too. Welcome back to the show, everyone. It is my honor and my pleasure to introduce you to our new Rotary International president and his aide. That is right. The gentleman that came out of nowhere, Mr. Francesco Arzetso is our new Rotary International president and his aide, the guy who had to step into the shoes of Tom Gump is a dear friend of the show as well, John DiGiorgio. Guys, remember John? He talked with us and then went off to sail the world. So thank you for getting off your boat, John, and joining us. Ladies and gentlemen, theys and thems from all over the Rotary world, let me please introduce you to your Rotary International President. Francisco, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.

SPEAKER_00: 2:45

It is a pleasure, but it is also an honor to be here to speak with all the Rotarians in the world. Thank you for this opportunity.

SPEAKER_01: 2:53

Oh, thank you. I mean, could you please start at the beginning? How long have you been a Rotarian? Let's find your Rotary story before your Rotary president story. What's your club? I am

SPEAKER_00: 3:08

a proud member of the club of Ragusa in Sicily and so in Italy. Now I have been a Rotarian for 36 years. So a long, long story in Rotary. And it was a very quiet story in the first years. And then it began to be very, very fast. And it runs very quickly in the last month. And now I am here as president. It was, for me, I have to say, it was a surprise, a wonderful, but also a very difficult surprise. Because it was so fast, arriving so quickly, I had just a very short time to prepare myself to this appointment. But now we are running, we are working very, very hard, and now we are ready. We are ready to go.

SPEAKER_01: 4:13

So, and in those 36 years, I assume... You were a president, a district governor, because there is a road you must take before you're president. They didn't just scoop you out of Sicily and say, be president.

SPEAKER_00: 4:31

I was the club president in 99-20, 1999-2000. I was a club president. And then I was the district governor in 09-10. And when I was district governor, John, my aide, was club president of a club of Malta. And so I was his governor, and it was the opportunity to meet each other, and was a very good meeting, because since that year we are very, very close, and it is... It is a great friendship that was born into Rotary and is so precious for me. I hope the same for John, of course.

SPEAKER_01: 5:28

Right, because you're in this now, John. So, like I said, you had to get off the sailboat. You had to join us.

SPEAKER_00: 5:35

Yes. And then after being a governor, the year after I was a training leader, a training leader in San Diego, in the assembly in San Diego for two years. And then I was part of several international committees. I was also chair of some committee. And two years ago, I was chair of the international convention in Melbourne. And that was another very beautiful experience. And each time, each commitment, each role that I had in Rotary, I thought it was the last. We all do. But every time, it was. And so now I really think it is the last. You've

SPEAKER_01: 6:38

reached the top of your mountain and you're

SPEAKER_00: 6:40

done. Do

SPEAKER_01: 6:42

you miss your club? You want to go back to your club?

SPEAKER_00: 6:44

Of course. I will go back to my club to work with them. And I think it will be another good and beautiful experience to go back to your club. I miss my club. Because in the last years, for several reasons, I was very... a very bad member of my club.

SPEAKER_01: 7:16

I think you have a few excuses for not being there.

SPEAKER_00: 7:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 7:21

So, Francisco, it's very obvious, and I already said before we went on, that your circumstances to become president, although not being unprecedented, were kind of a shock to a lot of Rotarians. Putting that story behind, was it a shock for you? I mean, did you wake up one day and get a phone call and say, you're now our president?

SPEAKER_00: 7:52

No. Almost, almost. Almost. They called me, of course, to say that there was this surprise. of the resignment of Mario. Mario is a very good friend of mine. I am very close to Mario. And for me it was very sad to hear that he was obliged to resign. And they said that they were going to do another interview to the same candidates of that year. And if I was available to have an interview, But the interview was after two days, not with a long period to prepare. I said, yes, of course, you know that in Rotary you cannot never say, no, I don't want to participate. So it is mandatory to say yes. And after two days, we had the interview in the afternoon. And in the evening, they called me again. saying me, congratulations, you are the new president. It was the Saturday evening.

SPEAKER_02: 9:16

Wow.

SPEAKER_00: 9:19

And I was in my district conference on that Saturday. And so it was, you can imagine what happened in the district conference. There were 400 Australians from my district, and it was a feast. It was... As you can imagine. A celebration. It's a special day. Italians are also very, very... Pansy. Excited. Much more than a celebration. It was a party. It was a delirium. It was very moving also. It was very, very moving. But I know that in the same day there were other conference in Italy. And in each of them, it was a great celebration. And John was in one of that district conference. Can you confirm, John? Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 10:22

John, it was your district conference. So basically from Malta all the way up the boot, people were incredibly excited?

SPEAKER_03: 10:30

Yes. The situation that Francesco is referring to is that I was president's rep. in another district in Italy, in Calabria, District 2102, when the news emerged, and it was chaotic. It was literally, it was a big, big festival. There was a great deal of joy for the Italian Rotarians and, of course, for Francesco at a personal level. So, yes, it was an interesting scene. Yeah. And that has continued.

SPEAKER_01: 11:05

So Francisco, when you didn't make it, right? So you were kind of relaxed thinking that you went for an interview to be president and they chose somebody else. So in America, we call it, you were off the hook. You were never going to be president, right? Or were you going to, had you had plans of being president another time?

SPEAKER_00: 11:34

You cannot plan to become a president. It happens, it happens. And yes, I... To be very, very, very honest with you, I was planning to be a candidate for president.

SPEAKER_02: 11:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 11:58

But that year, I... I was a candidate just to understand how the selection was made, just to see, just to hear, just to be prepared in the future. But I didn't have any future. I was elected on the first attempt, and that was very strange for me. I had the news on Saturday evening, and on Tuesday morning, I was already on a plane to go to Calgary. So I only had two days, two days to prepare my, to say something to my office, to my employees, to my colleagues in the office. and to explain that for one year I am out of the place. I cannot be with you. And so we arranged in a different way the office. And luckily, luckily, now I have my daughter with me in the office. And so she was called to substitute me, in other words. And it was very interesting. It was very... Chaotic, again, chaotic, but it was very interesting, yes.

SPEAKER_01: 13:34

That is important for our Rotarians to remember that when we've had, especially Jennifer Jones was nice enough to have us at a, like she took us all the way through it, from when she was a designate to when she was president-elect to even after. So our fans got a chance to see the two, two-and-a-half-year process process just to become president. And instead of two years, you had two days. And I think people don't realize that that means you had to move your business, your family, your everything in two days. So we would be remiss if we didn't say, is there a Mrs.? President, is there a family that has now been uprooted from Sicily and now taken to the United States?

SPEAKER_00: 14:33

Yes, I said in my speech that on Friday evening, I was in my dining room with my grandchildren, playing with them. And on Tuesday, I was on the plane. So it was really very... very strange for me and was also very engaging because it is not easy to prepare yourself in two days, in one week, to take this role that is so important, so difficult, so rich of many, many particulars that usually you learn in two years. Right. Two years to prepare yourself. yourself to the role. And we had only one week. But in Italy, we are very creative. So I hope to be creative enough to invent in the right way my year.

SPEAKER_01: 15:46

So, and I want to talk about your year, but I want to pass this question to John as well, because I believe, sir, you hadn't planned on being the aide to the president. That role was already given to another friend of the show. And so are you uprooted or do you get to stay in Malta? Are you on the road with the president?

SPEAKER_03: 16:15

I would say it's a combination of all of those. Okay. And also it's going to be, it's a journey, literally in this case. that as Francesco was saying, whereas you normally got two years worth to plan and decide on a number of things, everything is compressed. The role of the president today is also a bit different to what it was a number of years ago in the sense that in between what has happened is the world has got used to remote working and therefore the ability to reach out to the membership, not by not doing the traveling, but by extending the reach. Of course, extending our reach is something which is part of our action

SPEAKER_01: 17:04

plan, strategic plan. Absolutely. So is adapting. So is adapting,

SPEAKER_03: 17:08

exactly. You're absolutely right. And of course, Francesco will not be spending all his time in Everston. He'll be spending his time visiting projects and working on the advocacy with the partners of Rotary. So I don't think the president actually spends that time, that much time. And the plan is to be accompanying Francesco and Anna. So Monique and I will be accompanying Francesco and Anna on some of the trips. The actual number will vary depending on where they are and what the needs are. Of course, we also have the common language. We speak Italian. I actually learned Italian as a result of Francesco, and Francesco learned English, I have to say, partly as a result of me. So it's been an interesting journey, as he was saying.

SPEAKER_01: 18:04

That's wonderful. Well, and maybe you can teach me English. I'm not even going to try Italian.

SPEAKER_00: 18:10

But it's not the first time that I involved John in my plans. He usually is my victim in these commitments. He was the chair of my institute, the chair of the presidential conference that we organized in Venice. So he always works with me. And so I think it is a good couple, a good couple.

SPEAKER_01: 18:46

Yes. He says yes to everything. Good man, John. It just didn't, when he said yes to this last one, it was just a little bit sped up. So let's talk about your year, Francisco, because all of a sudden, I mean, we got, I got to meet Mario a couple times. We were talking football. He is a huge football fan like myself. We were talking about his year. I live in the Boston area. He was working with stuff at MIT. I mean, we got to really understand what he wanted to do. So since you're so good at pushing all this stuff into short timeframes, now tell us what you want to do because we haven't had two years to meet you. So what do you want to do in your year?

SPEAKER_00: 19:48

What I want to do? In my speech in Calgary, my first speech as president, my only speech, my first and only speech. So far.

SPEAKER_01: 20:02

So

SPEAKER_00: 20:02

far. So far. I said that my opinion, it is important to dream. Dream is the basis for me of our action. We have to dream. We have to dream. We have always to dream, but not alone. And the role of the president, the role of the leader, in my opinion, and I was called to be a leader in this year, the role of a good leader is to understand what their team is dreaming. Not what is my dream, but what is the dream of everyone, of each of my team members. And then I have to try to unify, to unite all the dreams in one big, wonderful dream that we all can reach and can follow and can reach at the end of the year. So I want to feel, not to know, but to feel what is the dream of Rotary World in this moment. And then we have to create a plan to bring to reality this big dream.

SPEAKER_01: 21:37

To make those dreams come true, for no better

SPEAKER_00: 21:40

words. Yes, yes, yes. We have to, but before we have to understand what is this dream? What is this dream? Of course, one of my dream is to move finally the membership from this now eternal number, 1,200,000, that we are not able to move. And this is one of my dreams in this moment, of course. And another dream, as I am very, very fond of the Rotary Foundation, I was the founder and I am now the president of Rotary Foundation Italy. So my dream is to eradicate polio, of course. So these are the two dreams that I hope are the dream of everyone in the Rotary world. We all need to have these two dreams. And then the third dream for me is peace. But peace in this moment in Europe is a really big problem. In this moment we have three wars nearby our borders, very, very, very near Ukraine, Iran and Middle East, Israel and Palestine. but we also have a difficult situation in Libya, for example. So I hope that we can work for peace. Of course, I don't think that I am able to stop wars, of course, but we can work for peace in a way that we know very well and that we have done for many years. When we send a young man to a peace center, it is a step toward peace. When we work for environment, again, environment is another of my important points. When we work for the environment, at the same moment, we work for peace. And if we want for the maternal health, and the child of all over the world we are working for the peace so we have to be very very concrete and we have to to point i hope in a few weeks now to have some a few a few goals to reach during this this year but the goals are what i I have already said, membership, polio, foundation, and peace with what means peace for the Rotarians.

SPEAKER_01: 24:55

So it's rather instead of unite for good, you want to kind of say unite to dream might be your theme in a way. However, what do you say with people whose dreams maybe looked at and well, ridiculed. I myself, when I speak to districts and everything, my dream, my goal is 2 million Rotarians by 2030, if not sooner. If we help Rotarians find their why, why are they here? What makes them happy? And I've had people come up to me and say, That's a silly dream. Are you saying you want big, bold dreams? Do you want us to dare to dream?

SPEAKER_00: 25:48

That is a silly dream if you dream alone. Of course. Okay. But if we dream all together in the same way and in the same direction, it is not a silly dream. It becomes something more realistic, more important. of something of a feasible. And so I think that, but the first thing is to have all the Rotarians dreaming in the same way. That is difficult. And to do something of a similar, you need to create in the Rotarians a big emotion. Because you cannot work with the Rotarians if they are not pushed by the enthusiasm and to create enthusiastic atmosphere, you need to give them emotions. They have to live the same emotion in the same moment, all together. And in that moment, you can realize your dream. But only if you are able to unite everybody around a unique, a unique dream.

SPEAKER_01: 27:14

So you talk about, and John, I'll ask you about this passion part, because you both talked about, you and Francisco talked about when it was announced that he was going to be president, that all of Italy into your neck of the woods was filled with this passion, was filled with this energy, that it was a festival of just pure joy. Is that what Francisco is talking about? Is that what we need a little bit more Italy in our life, a little more Italian in our rotary?

SPEAKER_03: 27:47

Interesting question. Well, you know, if we don't have passion for what we're doing, we might as well stay at home. So passion is very important. And Francesco is absolutely right saying you need, and the role of the leader is to motivate people, to make people emotional, make people want something. to go down that path. So yes, I would say it's important to have that passion. But I would go slightly further. So I don't want to give the impression that there were festivals going on in Italy when Francesco's appointment was announced and that was it. I experienced living the convention in Calgary very closely with Francesco and Anna and together with Monique, my partner. And People were coming up to Francesco in the corridors, in the hallways, and thanking him for stepping in. I think he motivated people because he's very sincere. Sorry, I'm saying this in front of you, Francesco, but he's very, because I know that he's a person of humility, so he doesn't like being praised very much. But that sincerity, I think, is something which is much appreciated by people. And that's humility. is very much appreciated by people. And so the reaction, the offers of support, offers of congratulation, of congratulations, et cetera, were really touching, I have to say. So that's part of the emotion also. You know, if you were there in, I was backstage when Francesco was giving his speech, so I didn't live it in quite the same way. But you could see the reaction. I've seen the video. I could hear the reaction. I could see the reaction. And I've seen the video. The reaction was fantastic because that sense of connection was very clear. And we need that. We need that stability at this moment. We need humility at the moment. We need a person who can unify. And finding the person to unify exactly in the year where the theme is to unite for good, you couldn't make it up. It's exactly right. The moment is right.

SPEAKER_01: 30:15

So you kept Mario's theme, I happen to love it. And did you keep it because, Francisco, because it was one less thing that you had to do in the week that you... It was

SPEAKER_00: 30:30

a... No, no. First of all, there is... a misunderstanding. The theme, the theme... There is

SPEAKER_01: 30:38

no more themes, correct.

SPEAKER_00: 30:40

Yes, it is a message, but it is decided by the board. It is not written by the president. Oh. So this is not the message of the president. It is the message of the Rotary World. And my job is to... to bring this message around the world.

SPEAKER_01: 31:10

So then what does that message mean to you?

SPEAKER_00: 31:14

What are those

SPEAKER_01: 31:15

three words?

SPEAKER_00: 31:16

For me it's a very simple, very short, but it's a wonderful message. Unite for me is one, together is one of my favorite words. we have to work together because we alone, we cannot go in any place. We always remain where we are. Alone we cannot do anything. Unite together, unite and unite as I said, that means only that we have to work all together. This is unite in the space because you have to unite the clubs, you have to unite the partners, you have to unite a lot of people around your dream. But unite in the time that is important as well as unite in the space means that you have to work in continuity with people before you and with people after you. So it is not my year. It is always the year of Rotary. So I have to work very closely with Stephanie and with Sanku now. Because only if we work together, we have an enduring dream. We have something very important. If we change our dream every year, it is never over. a big dream. It is always a very small dream. It's not so important. So we need to dream all together, but for a long time. And we have to work because this dream can be real for several years.

SPEAKER_01: 33:12

So I know you... Please, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00: 33:15

It is not essential for me to reach a goal during this year. If possible, of course, I will be very... I would

SPEAKER_01: 33:28

like you to reach the peace goal. That would be lovely.

SPEAKER_00: 33:32

I hope to reach some goals. But if the goal is very big and it is not possible to reach it in one year, I am very happy to work for Sanku to begin something that he can... can continue after me. And when we, the run that I am running, I apologize for my English that is very simple and not so sophisticated. It's perfect. We are running, in my opinion, I am running a relay. I am not running for myself. It is a relay. And I am one of the relay. I will pass the the job to the other runner after me. But when we, after one, two or three years, we reach the goal, it is the goal of everybody, of all of us. It is not important who personally reached the goal. The important is that we all have worked for the goal.

SPEAKER_01: 34:47

I love it. So I know you are an incredibly, both of you are very incredibly busy men. So I just have one or two more questions and I'll let you go because I assume you have a few things to do today. Let's go into the future. And it is now, let's see, we're recording this on the 9th of July, but it's 2026. You're done. What do you think people are remembering about your year? In other words, how did people like your year? What do you think happened? Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00: 35:31

But the English says that the most elegant man is able to walk through all London, from east to ovest, without being noticed by nobody, but each of them remembers him. And in the same way, I am not interested to do something exceptional remembered for my strange things. Grandness. You don't want to be

SPEAKER_01: 36:19

remembered for something grand. Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 36:21

But I will be really very happy if every Rotarian can remember something of a small about my year. One can remember the humility, another can remember that I was very, very open with people and ready to speak with everybody. And I hope to be remembered for the small things, not for the... The grand, the

SPEAKER_01: 36:59

grand

SPEAKER_00: 37:00

thing. For a great... But he was a good man. He was a good president.

SPEAKER_01: 37:07

Yeah. As easy as that. John? Are you ready? Francisco has no choice. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_03: 37:16

Yes, I'm ready.

SPEAKER_01: 37:18

And we'll put you in the time machine too. What are you thinking about in July 9th of 2026? What do you think is going to be going through your mind? Besides that you could use a rest.

SPEAKER_03: 37:33

Yeah, I'm sure we'll need a rest by then. It is very impacting as a role also. But I think there are interesting things, actually, that we need to work on. I think every Rotarian thinks, ah, Rotary should do this or Rotary should do that, as if Rotary was a person. We are Rotary. And every one of us, perhaps at different levels of influence, but every one of us can make a difference. Francesco has been thrust into this position where he has the ability to make a difference. He's asked me to come along the journey to help him in some ways to achieve that. And, you know, we are, or Francesco is at least, in a position to bring about some change, maybe some change that we have as simple Rotarians always thought of as, wouldn't it be great if this changed or if that happened? Now, Francesco is in a position to perhaps bring about some of that change. Certainly not all the things that need to be changed, because there's always evolution.

SPEAKER_01: 38:48

Don't send him a list. He doesn't want a list. I am

SPEAKER_03: 38:53

creating a list, by the way. Anyone out there want to add to that list? So really, what I would like, come a year's time, is to look back at this year, and one, have strengthened this... bond of friendship that francesco and anna have with monique and myself which i'm sure will occur it's an amazing opportunity that we have been given we've all been given but hopefully we'll also have made a difference and rotary makes making a difference was actually the theme in the year that i was district governor so making a difference is built in to our way of doing Rotary, and Francesco and I have the same vision for Rotary, founded on a solid platform of ethics and integrity.

SPEAKER_00: 39:45

I think that next July the Rotarians could say, oh, the president was very normal, wasn't so good, but the aid was really very good.

SPEAKER_03: 40:02

I doubt that. I doubt

SPEAKER_01: 40:04

that. All right. Mr. President, is there any closing words that you have to a worldwide audience who are super excited to meet you? Any last words, sir?

SPEAKER_00: 40:16

Yes. I say to the Rotarians all over the world that I, but not I, we are living for a for an interesting, long, but also short trip for a journey that is very exciting. But this journey to be successful needs to be done all together. And we all have to give a hand to the president because the president alone is not able to... to do a good job. I need all the Rotarians. Even the single Rotarian that does a small thing, even that is so precious for me and is so essential for our success. So we have to work all together and then it will be a great success.

SPEAKER_01: 41:26

And dream big.

SPEAKER_00: 41:28

And dream big, of course.

SPEAKER_01: 41:30

And dream big, of course. Gentlemen, President Francisco, John, thank you so much for joining me on the show. It was an absolute honor. Thank you for stepping in literally last minute and taking your friends and family with you. And I, for one, will not stop dreaming. So I thank you, sir, for being on the show, both of you.

SPEAKER_00: 41:54

Thank you, everybody. And thank you to you, Ben, of course. Ciao, John. Ciao, Francesco.

SPEAKER_01: 42:03

Well, what do you think? Keep dreaming. Huh? What do you think of Francisco? What a joy to have him on the show. I really wanted to know the story of the phone call. And I was so happy that both he and John were so gracious to tell me about what it's like to pick up the phone, to be over it, to think, I'm not going to be Rotary President. Gosh, it was fun to go through the exercise of trying out to be Rotary President. Oops. Now I'm rotary president. Oh, by the way, I'm bringing my best bud with me and their wives on this adventure. Drop everything. Here we go. Wow. I mean, think about it, you guys. Think about it. Could you do it? I mean, I consider myself a blue blood do anything for rotary. But could I drop everything? To go on an adventure like that? I kind of hope so. Oh, well, thank you, John. Thank you, Francisco. Thank you for a wonderful year in advance that you're going to have. And thank you out there for listening. I do adore, adore doing this show. If you'd like to hear my more musical side, of course, check out Rotary Radio UK. And until next week, take care of yourself and the world around you. And we'll hear you next time on the Action to Impact podcast. Thank you out there. Take care.