2025 marks a year of renewal and momentum for HP Industrial in Italy. A year marked by crucial milestones, from Hunkeler Innovationdays to Print4All, through Ipack-Ima and Labelexpo, which not only reaffirm HP’s centrality in the world of industrial digital printing but also chart a new course under the leadership of Alessandro Bestetti, recently appointed Country Manager HP Italy for the Industrial division
It was not an April Fool’s joke, despite the announcement being made on April 1, 2025. His appointment as Country Manager HP Italy for the Industrial division also holds strategic and symbolic value. We are talking about Alessandro Bestetti, a manager who brings with him a modern vision, a deep understanding of the market, and the ambition to strengthen HP’s role as a key technology partner for the entire printing and packaging supply chain, with a growing focus on sustainability, automation, and digital transformation.
In this exclusive interview, covering a range of topics and collected from the major trade fairs of the year, Alessandro tells us how the new Italian leadership fits into HP’s global innovation journey, revealing the strengths, key technologies, and goals of a division that looks to the future of the digital printing market with passion and renewed enthusiasm.
Face to face with Alessandro Bestetti, new Country Manager HP Italy Industrial Division
Alessandro, can you introduce yourself to the readers of Converter?
“I have been working in the printing sector for 25 years now. After my early experiences, always in multinational companies in the sector, I joined HP in 2017 as an account manager, specializing in sheet-fed machines. In 2021, I had the opportunity to grow at HP as a district sales manager in the commercial sector, and more recently, I was appointed Regional Business Manager, which expanded my role to the flexible packaging, labels, and cartonboard sectors. I want to emphasize that this path was built together with HP, which, as a company, strongly believes in internal growth, offering stimulating and challenging career paths. I’ve been fortunate to work with an exceptional team, which has supported me in my journey, bringing me to manage the country starting last April.
On a personal level, I am 52 years old, married, and have a son. My passions are reading and sports. I am also a sommelier, I love the culture of wine (and here every reference to the label sector is not purely accidental – ed.), and its pairings with food. I am a great travel enthusiast, and I love discovering new cultures and places”.
What are your strategic priorities?
“Certainly, consolidating HP’s growth in Italy, also in light of the excellent results achieved in recent years, is one of my main priorities. This is why Italy is now moving out of the cluster of countries that included Spain and Portugal, with which it had been grouped until March. From now on, Italy will operate more autonomously. Additionally, I aim to strengthen the team, as I firmly believe in teamwork. Success must be built together, with people who think and work intelligently because that’s where ideas that make a difference are born”
HP is a company in constant evolution. What is the positioning of the Italian division compared to the European market?
“HP in Italy is growing both in terms of installations and volumes, although the market is far from simple, volatile and unpredictable. Since we offer a product positioned in the print on demand sector with immediate responses, the climate of uncertainty can actually become a valuable ally for us, as the market, when it expresses a need, wants immediate answers, and here digital printing always wins. HP believes strongly in innovations and the markets for different printing technologies, as clearly demonstrated at drupa 2024, which focused on diversification in commercial, labels, flexible packaging, and cardboard sectors, precisely to give our customers the opportunity to diversify their own offerings.
2025 is a year full of trade fairs for the various sectors in which HP is present. What is the common thread of your presence at these events?
“Our main strength is having such a diversified and important portfolio of solutions that we can always present ourselves in pole position in the different markets. While drupa and Labelexpo are global fairs where you can spot the future trends across all printing sectors, the recent Hunkeler Innovation Days were a very important event for the Italian market, with high-level meetings and a focus on integration and automation in commercial printing. At Print4All and Ipack-Ima, we will have a more networking-focused presence, communicating with our clients and focusing more on workflow and automation. Of course, at Labelexpo, we will bring technologies for the label and flexible packaging sectors, with the evolution of the V12 platform”.
Which sector do you see as having the most potential for growth for your technologies?
“Commercial and labels are two markets that for us are already consolidated, and we will continue to develop innovative technologies for them. The sector that represents a huge opportunity for us is certainly flexible packaging, and today in this sector, I see the same curiosity and attention from companies and the market that was present in the early 2000s when the digital machine boom was about to start, even though many doubted the potential back then. We are in a context where the need for sustainability, combined with changes in production methods, will strongly highlight the flexible packaging sector. I think it’s interesting to make comparisons and analyze the advantages and disadvantages between traditional and digital solutions, not for replacement, but for integration. If we think about the commercial printing sector, it’s now clear that traditional machines and digital solutions coexist and strengthen each other. Our end-to-end Digital Pouch Factory solution, composed of our 200K in combination with traditional converting technologies, forms an extremely competitive line that is worth continuing to develop. Here, we as technology providers need to be good at explaining the potential of these innovative solutions to the market”.
How does sustainable innovation fit into HP’s industrial path?
“At HP, this topic is fundamental, and it should not just be treated as a slogan. Sustainability, in fact, is not just an ‘accessory’ but is embedded at every level of the company, and every employee is encouraged and motivated to perform their tasks with a sustainable mindset. We are the main advocates of printing, and it could not be otherwise, but we must insist on working more efficiently and responsibly, striving to reduce waste and enhance innovative and sustainable processes through direct and concrete actions”.
What are the specificities of the Italian industrial printing market that HP intends to focus on more decisively?
“Italy is a country with extraordinary creative capacity, with quality recognized worldwide in the printing world. Our research and development is not only focused on building machines but also on creating solutions that enable customers to produce high-value content, thanks to innovative inks and applications. I think of the extraordinary work carried out by Martina Corradi, who has greatly boosted the debate on creativity, involving brands and organizing stimulating activities such as Challenge Your Agency and other initiatives that have generated enthusiastic feedback from customers, not for the material prize itself, but for the creative challenge and networking that followed. The latest edition was an extraordinary success, and the organizational machine for the 2025 edition has already started, with a new format”.
Alessandro Bestetti’s words reflect the image of HP Industrial as strongly rooted in the present but with its eyes focused on the future, ready to face the new challenges of the sector with concrete tools: technological innovation, customer focus, sustainability, creativity, and an increasingly “local” approach in managing operational strategies.
