Fondazione The Bridge ETS is registered in Italy as a third-sector foundation (Ente del Terzo Settore), with its seat at Bridge HQ, Modena. A board of five trustees oversees the Foundation. The founder runs it day to day, with Berto Marchetti as Director of Operations.
The board
Founder and trustees
Alexander Macalister, Fondatore.
Attends by invitation; does not vote.
Under our statute the founder may attend any board meeting, though in practice he comes when the board asks him to, and his consent is needed to change the Foundation’s mission, name or logo. He can propose candidates for the board but not appoint them. Budgets, grants and appointments are for the trustees alone.
Finance and Audit Committee. Amy Millie (chair) and Hélène Duval. Reviews the accounts every quarter and recommends the annual budget to the board.
Amy Millie. Photograph: Alexander Macalister.
Governance and operations
Amy Millie, in her own words
The board’s job is to ask two questions, again and again. Is the Foundation doing what it says it does? And is the money going where donors were told it would go? It is not our job to run the programme. Berto runs operations and reports to Alexander, and the students are theirs.
We see the accounts every quarter, approve the budget once a year and agree the direction. Berto tells us when something needs the board’s attention, and we make sure it gets it.
My own part is the line between the board and the founder. The trustees need enough of Alexander to govern properly; the students need him more. Most weeks that means saying no, politely, to both sides.
Amy Millie, Trustee; chair, Finance and Audit Committee.
Places and grants
How we decide who gets a place
Until 2027 places were decided on enthusiasm and Berto’s judgement. Since then they have gone through a scored panel. Berto argued against it, then accepted it, and is now its strongest defender. His judgement is one of the four scores.
Sep to Nov
Applications
Every application is read in full by Berto and Bruno, with the results, the coach’s reference and the video.
Dec to Jan
Video assessment
A shortlist sends on-board and outside footage of set exercises. The coaching staff review it together.
Feb
Assessment days
Finalists come to Modena for two days: the kart circuit, the sim suite, the workshop and an interview.
Feb
The scored panel
Alexander, Berto, Bruno and Adamo score each finalist on four criteria of equal weight, with a trustee sitting in to see that the process is followed.
Feb
A conversation with the family
We talk plainly about the family’s situation, to confirm that a place is needed. It is not scored.
Late Feb
The board approves
The trustees approve the cohort and its budget. They do not choose the students.
The four scores
Pace and racecraft, judged against the equipment the driver has had
How they learn: what changed between the first session and the last at the assessment days
Character, from the coach’s reference and the interview
Berto’s coaching judgement
Each is scored from one to five. Ties go to the driver with less support elsewhere.
Accountability
Annual reports
We publish a report every year: what we spent, on what, and what came of it. Each one is a single document; the summaries are below.
Annual report 2028
Published January 2029
Our fourth year at Modena and the first with a board of five. The programme’s share of spending rose again as the costs of fitting out the unit fell away, and seat days passed 200 for the first time. Applications for the 2029 intake rose to 146 for five places. Kofi, from Ghana, became the first student to reach us through the Africa outreach Kwabena Asante-Reid leads, and Maren Lindqvist joined the board in November.
The year the Foundation became an institution. The performance-education syllabus was written and taught for the first time, grants moved to a scored panel, and Maren Lindqvist took on our communications. We took seven new students, our largest intake, and published our first profiles of a graduating class.
Our first two years, reported together. Most of the money went into fitting out the unit at Modena: the workshop, the fleet, and a sim suite our simulator partner supplied at well below cost. 11 students came through the programme across the first two intakes, from eight countries.
