Gastón Bottazzini

Gastón Bottazzini was born in Buenos Aires in 1969 and is known as the first foreign executive to lead Spain's flagship El Corte Inglés retail group. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a bachelor's degree in agricultural engineering and economics from UC Davis.

Bottazzini was appointed CEO of El Corte Inglés in July 2024 after joining as an advisor at the end of 2023. He was tasked with designing and implementing the 2025-2030 strategic plan, with a planned investment of €3.3 billion in store remodeling, business expansion, and logistics and technological growth. In fiscal 2024, the company posted €16.675 billion in total revenues, up 2%, with net income of €512 million, an increase of 6.7%. However, he departed in October 2025 after just over a year, with sources citing strategic differences with the Álvarez family shareholders.

Career History

• CEO of El Corte Inglés (2024-2025)
• CEO of Falabella (2018-2024)
• General Manager of Falabella Financiero (approximately 10 years)
• Partner at McKinsey & Company (1996-2008), focusing on financial and consumer goods sectors across Latin America, United States, and Spain

At Falabella, Bottazzini led significant strategic initiatives. Highlights of his tenure included the acquisition of Linio, launch of the Falabella.com marketplace, and creation of FPay, the company's digital wallet and payment processing platform. He also spearheaded innovation and digitization of Falabella Bank and CMR across the region, launching Falabella Bank in Colombia and leading the company's entry into Mexico.

What Bottazzini could bring to El Corte Inglés: Drawing on his two decades of retail and financial services expertise across Latin America and Spain, combined with his transformation experience at Falabella—where he orchestrated digital ecosystem development and expanded into emerging markets—Bottazzini was positioned to modernize El Corte Inglés's operations and execute its ambitious 2025-2030 growth strategy. His McKinsey background and experience scaling financial subsidiaries aligned with the company's need for operational restructuring and strategic innovation in competitive European retail.