Flavio Cattaneo

Flavio Cattaneo became CEO of Enel in May 2023, succeeding Francesco Starace who had led the Italian energy giant for a decade of aggressive global expansion. Enel is the world's largest private-sector utility by installed capacity, with operations spanning power generation, distribution, and retail across Italy, Spain (through Endesa), Latin America, and other markets. The company manages over 90 GW of generation capacity and serves approximately 70 million end users. Cattaneo inherited a company with a strong renewable energy portfolio but also a massive debt load exceeding €60 billion — a legacy of Starace's acquisition-driven global expansion. His strategic pivot has been sharply focused on deleveraging: selling non-core assets in Latin America (Romanian, Argentine, and Peruvian operations), reducing capital expenditure, and concentrating investment on the regulated networks business in Italy and Spain, where stable returns and rate base growth offer more predictable cash flows. His key decisions include the pace and pricing of asset disposals, capital allocation between renewable growth and grid infrastructure, managing Italian regulatory relationships (Enel's distribution network is Italy's largest), and navigating the European energy market after the volatility caused by the Russia-Ukraine gas crisis. Cattaneo's debt reduction progress, dividend sustainability, and ability to maintain growth while shrinking the portfolio are the primary stock drivers on the Milan Stock Exchange.