Team
Meet our team
Navio (or nao in Old Spanish) was the primary ship used by early Spanish and Portuguese explorers during the Age of Discovery. The ships’ design made them ideal for navigating through uncharted waters to unknown territories.
Just like the navios of old, we help clients navigate the challenges of a transformation. With multi-disciplinary expertise from technology to store management, we help you build and lead programs to drive transformation and fuel growth.
Carlos D. Castelán
Founder & Managing Director
Before founding The Navio Group, Carlos was a Partner & Chief Strategy Officer at Conlego, a premier negotiations and … partnership firm. There he advised on growth strategy …
Kate McDonald
Senior Principal
Kate is a former Principal in Target Corporation’s corporate strategy group in Minneapolis, MN …
Jadesola Arowolo
Senior Analyst
Before joining The Navio Group, Jadesola built her career in retail in merchandising and operations roles at Office Depot and …
Stefan A. Castelán
Head of Marketing Practice
Stefan is the Head of Marketing Practice at The Navio Group and holds a B.A. from Stanford University. Before joining Navio, he was the first marketer at DataFox and helped scale it for five years until its acquisition by Oracle.
Blog
Retail’s Old Playbook is Failing. Here’s the New One.
For 30 years, the path to retail success was clear: win the race for access. It was a straightforward battle for ubiquity—the ability to be
The New Private Equity Playbook: Guiding Organizations to Thrive in a Changing World
For a long time, the traditional private equity playbook was a huge success. The strategy of using cheap credit and financial engineering to drive returns was
Packaging EPR: New Supply Chain Costs Hitting Your Bottom Line in 2025–26
Remember paying a nickel deposit on a soda can? Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) brings that idea to packaging—only the brand pays. Starting next year, five
