Yaneken: Chile's #2 Multi-Brand Retail Group
Built from scratch through disciplined M&A, operational integration, and AI deployment at scale — an operator-led transformation across 10+ brands.
Read the full storyWe think Latin American companies can run on AI as well as anyone's. We're helping them build it.
Advisory from operators, not consultants. Andrea spent almost nine years in marketing and brand at LATAM Airlines, Chapter 11 included; Sebastian runs about 150 stores and 10+ brands on AI we wrote ourselves. Everything we recommend has already run on our own P&L.
Sebastian Gebhardt
Andrea De Vivo
- La Tercera
- Pulso
- Diario Financiero
- América Retail
- IdDC
- Stanford GSB
What we're working on this month.
A living page. We update it every few weeks so you can see what we're actually building, not what we were building when the site launched.
- Building
- Andrea, the Marketing OS, is past 30 modules and running in production across 8 brands. Alongside it, Meridian — our Bayesian marketing-mix stack — now covers 8 brands across 16 Chilean regions.
- Operating
- Designing Yáneken's 2026 operating plan: how to keep growing inorganically while consolidating the omnichannel operation and taking another point off cost-to-serve.
- Advising
- We take a small number of engagements at a time — there are two of us and no one to delegate to. If you want to know whether we have capacity, the honest answer comes from asking us.
- Writing
- The Retail Brief — one operator question, one answer grounded in data and real deployment. Published bilingually every couple of weeks.
Three core practices. Each one running inside our own company first.
Applied AI & Operational Intelligence
Enterprise chatbots querying SAP and Salesforce in real time. Demand forecasting models in production. Andrea, a 30+ module Marketing OS for Latin America. We write the code, deploy it, and keep it running — then help you build the same capability in-house instead of renting it.
Learn moreRetail & Consumer Transformation
Store formats, omnichannel, and the unglamorous operational detail that decides whether a transformation lands. We've opened stores, closed underperformers, and integrated acquisitions across 10+ brands — so we know which recommendations survive contact with a Monday morning.
Learn moreGrowth Advisory & M&A
Yáneken became Chile's second-largest multi-brand retail group through disciplined acquisition. We've sourced the deals, structured them, and done the post-merger integration work that decides whether they ever pay off.
Learn moreWho you actually work with.
Sebastian Gebhardt
Leads Chile's second-largest multi-brand retail group (roughly US$230M in expected 2025 sales, about 150 stores, 10+ brands). Combines C-suite retail leadership with hands-on AI engineering — built Andrea's 30+ module Marketing OS as a solo technical founder. Led digital transformation, M&A, and omnichannel strategy at scale. Stanford GSB MBA, Arjay Miller Scholar.
Andrea De Vivo
Born in Barranquilla, Colombia. Almost nine years at LATAM Airlines (2013–2022): she started as an international marketing and sub-brands analyst and from 2017 to 2022 was Brand and Global Communications Manager, a period that included the airline's Chapter 11. Recognized as one of LATAM's top 44 leaders out of 700. Now Associate Director of Marketing & Communications at Ronald McDonald House Charities. BBA, Universidad de Los Andes (Bogotá); Erasmus, Bocconi.
We still have day jobs. That's the whole point.
Sebastian runs Chile's second-largest multi-brand retail group. Andrea is Associate Director of Marketing & Communications at Ronald McDonald House Charities, after almost nine years at LATAM Airlines, from 2017 to 2022 as Brand and Global Communications Manager, a period that included Chapter 11. Menlo & Oak is where that experience goes to work for other companies.
You get the two of us — not a staffed pyramid — and judgment shaped by problems we are still solving on our own P&L.
What we believe, and why we can prove it.
Advice you haven't tested is a hypothesis.
We've managed P&Ls, not commented on them. Every recommendation we make has already been tried somewhere it could have cost us money.
The local operator is the edge.
Five of the largest retailers on the planet have failed in Chile. Not for lack of capital — for underestimating the person who lives inside the market. Scale isn't the advantage. Context is.
Software is no longer the moat.
We rebuilt 80% of a real, later-acquired SaaS product in five days with one engineer. What's scarce now isn't the ability to build the tool — it's how many people on your team can actually operate it.
We put our names on the work.
Our record is public: La Tercera, Pulso, Diario Financiero, IdDC. No anonymized case studies, no “a leading retailer.” You can read what we did and see whose name is on it.
Latest from The Retail Brief.
- The Discount Is the Bait. The Loan Is the Product.When you buy a TV in 12 installments during a Cyber event, it's entirely possible the retailer makes zero pesos on that TV — and it's still one of their best deals of the year. Understanding why changes how you compete.
- I Paid Happily.Disney, the Mickey ice cream bar, and the one margin no bank can copy. I know exactly how the trick works — water at cents sold for dollars, a 90% margin on the ice cream — and I paid happily anyway.
- The Most Expensive Mistake I Made in Retail — and the 8 Mistakes Inside ItK-One was our bet on premium sporting goods. A 700-square-meter concept where we'd compete with the best stores in the world. It sounded perfect. And it failed. Not for one reason — for eight.
The Retail Brief
One operator question, one answer grounded in data and real deployment. On AI, retail strategy, and doing business in Latin America. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
How we work.
- 1
Diagnose
We start by deeply understanding your business, your data, and your ambition. No generic frameworks. No recycled playbooks.
- 2
Design
We co-create a strategy that's specific, actionable, and tied to measurable outcomes. Every recommendation grounded in operator experience.
- 3
Drive
We stay engaged through implementation. We don't hand off decks — we help you execute, iterate, and ship.
Common questions
What does Menlo & Oak do?
Menlo & Oak is a boutique advisory firm founded by operators, not career consultants. We help companies with AI strategy and deployment, retail and consumer transformation, brand strategy, growth advisory and M&A, and executive coaching — working across Chile, Latin America, and the United States in English and Spanish.
How is Menlo & Oak different from a traditional consulting firm?
Our advisors work inside real organizations. Sebastian Gebhardt is CEO of Yaneken, a Chilean retail group with about 150 stores and 10+ brands, and builds AI products in production. Andrea De Vivo spent almost nine years in marketing and brand at LATAM Airlines, from 2017 to 2022 as Brand and Global Communications Manager. We advise from operating experience — deployment and P&L results instead of slide decks.
Who do you typically work with?
CEOs, boards, and owners of mid-to-large retail and consumer companies; family businesses navigating succession or modernization; and leadership teams under pressure to adopt AI who want guidance from people who have actually deployed it.
Do you only advise, or do you also build?
Both. Alongside advisory engagements we build and operate production AI products — synthetic consumer research, computer-vision retail compliance, voice AI, and demand forecasting — deployed across retail, e-commerce, and financial services in Latin America.
Where is Menlo & Oak based?
We operate from Santiago, Chile and Menlo Park, California, and serve clients across Latin America and the US, fully bilingual in English and Spanish.
How does an engagement start?
With a conversation, not a proposal. Book a consultation through our calendar or email andrea@menloandoak.com — we'll discuss your situation and tell you honestly whether and how we can help.
Press and podcasts.
- Yaneken, Chile's second-largest multi-brand group, wants to keep acquiring: 'We're a retail aggregator'
- AI: evolving is not optional for those who work in and lead companies
- #162 — Artificial Intelligence in Retail, with Sebastián Gebhardt, CEO of Yáneken
- The graveyard of giants: why global retail fails in Chile
- The discount mirage: why retail is digging its own grave
- The country where giants fall: why global retail fails in Chile
- Señal DF: Beyond the anchor stores: the owners of specialty fashion retail in Chile
- DF MAS: Grupo Yáneken acquires urban magazine Joia
- América Retail: The dogmatism of efficiency
- The Clinic: 'An elevated curation': Grupo Yáneken lands in MUT with a Drops store
- IdDC: Goodbye to bland boards: Diverse corporate governance with a startup mindset for a world that changed
- MAS Que Un Pitch: Bold — Sebastián Gebhardt: From Chile's first sneaker store to leading a national retail group
- La Tercera · Domingo: Sebastián Gebhardt, sneaker collector: 'The most I've paid is two thousand dollars'