On a faded and tattered piece of paper taped to a wall in Monica Mandelli’s Manhattan office is the motto by which she lives: “La vittoria non e’ mai definitiva e la sconfitta non e’ mai fatale: quello che conta e’ il coraggio,” which roughly translates into “Victory is never forever and defeat is never fatal: all that matters is courage.”
That piece of paper (and its message) has traveled with Mandelli from London to Harvard and from a small cubicle to the large office she now inhabits as a managing director at Goldman Sachs. Said Mandelli, “It encourages me to not become complacent when I win and never to give up when I’m struggling. It reminds me to wake up every day and fight. I’m very confident and relentless and it sums me up quite well.”