Enel, the Italian multinational group responsible for power distribution in São Paulo and two other Brazilian states, announced Thursday the retirement of its country manager in Brazil, Nicola Cotugno, and his replacement by executive Antonio Scala.
Mr. Cotugno’s retirement comes weeks after a massive storm left millions of people in Brazil’s largest city without power for several days. The company, however, says Mr. Cotugno’s exit had been decided in October — and that he postponed retirement in order to cope with the outage and its aftermath.
The prolonged power outage prompted Mayor Ricardo Nunes to declare that “Enel can no longer stay” in São Paulo and that “it is unacceptable to have a company like this, that hasn’t a drop of respect for the population and has left people without electricity for almost a week.”
Despite his rhetoric, however, Mr. Nunes took no official action to cancel Enel’s contract with the city.
Enel won a public tender in 2018 to acquire Eletropaulo, a now-defunct state-owned electricity company. At the time, Eletropaulo was already under the control of a private company, the U.S.-based AES, which sold its stake. Enel also operates in the states of Rio de Janeiro and Ceará, with around 15 million customers in the country.
An Enel press statement said Mr. Cotugno’s departure was decided at board meetings in October, before the long blackout in São Paulo.
“To support the replacement process and recent contingencies,” the statement said, Mr. Cotugno postponed his departure until November 22. “Until the necessary administrative procedures for the appointment of Antonio Scala are completed, the president of the Board of Directors, Guilherme Gomes Lencastre, will assume the position on an interim basis,” the statement added.
Mr. Scala, the incoming country manager, joined Enel in 2009 as head of risk management in Italy. He’s currently the global head for personnel and organization.
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