Illycaffe Chief Executive Officer Cristina Scocchia cuts a rare figure in the Italian corporate world as a woman at the head of a famous family firm where she’s not related to anyone. And now, as she prepares to lead the company to a stock-market listing, Scocchia wants to inspire a new generation of female executives in the country. 

Scocchia took over at Illy in January with a mandate to bring the coffee roaster to an initial public offering by 2026, likely in New York or Milan, she said in an interview. The family-owned company had been valued at over €1 billion ($1.1 billion) in 2019, when it initially began to seek out minority investors, people familiar with the matter said at the time.