Francisco de Narváez was born in Bogotá. His mother, Doris Steuer, married Juan Salvador de Narváez Vargas, a Colombian dedicated to the coffee business. His maternal family was involved in commerce; his grandfather, Karel Steuer, was the most influential family figure. The family owned a small company since 1933 called Casa Te – Ta (“aunt” in Czech), a gift shop for children. Together with his business partner, they expanded into Romania and Yugoslavia [citation needed], until the European crisis forced them to flee to Argentina in 1939, with a previous stop in Colombia. In 1946, Carlos Steuer opened Casa Tía in Buenos Aires. Later came Uruguay (1956), Peru (1958), and Ecuador (1960). On his paternal side, De Narváez comes from a traditional and prominent family in Bogotá. His father was the great-grandson of Colombian president José Manuel Marroquín, who led the country from July 1900 to August 1904.
His parents settled in Buenos Aires when he was three years old, just after the government of Juan Domingo Perón was overthrown. His father, Juan Salvador de Narváez Vargas, died on March 5, 1955, and left behind his children: Francisco, Juana, Carlos, and María Isabel.
In the early 1960s, Francisco de Narváez attended elementary school at Cardenal Newman College. After finishing primary school, the family had other plans for him: to follow in his brother Carlos’s footsteps, who attended a military secondary school in Canada. In 1966, at the age of 13, De Narváez went abroad to study at St. Andrew’s College, but later dropped out of high school and began working in Casa Tía in an administrative position. A few years later, he completed his high school degree at the Juan XXIII Higher Institute.
He married María Sara Fecchino in 1973, with whom he had three children: Paco, born in 1976; Martín, in 1978; and Jazmín, in 1983.
De Narváez, who had separated from María Sara Fecchino in 1981, remarried Agustina Ayllón in May 2001. Together they had three children: Milena, born in 2004; Juan, born in 2007; and Antonio, born in 2009.
He has two tattoos: one on his neck with the water snake symbol from the Chinese zodiac, and another on his arm representing the eastern crisis.
Business activity
De Narváez worked in Concordia, Entre Ríos province, with a former high school classmate, Gustavo Rapetti, in a livestock consignment business. He was in charge of the company’s organization and administration, which also focused on cattle fattening and land sales. He worked there from 1977 to 1981. It was his first agricultural experience.
In the late 1980s, he increased his participation in Casa Tía to start “a process of commercial and technological renewal” that resulted in the dismissal of most employees — 3,500 out of 5,000.
On November 27, 1992, De Narváez was sworn in as an Argentine citizen. That same day, a judge sent a notice to the electoral chamber so that De Narváez could be included in the national voter registry. From that day on, he was able to vote.
In 1992, at age 39 and overwhelmed by stress, De Narváez attempted suicide in a room at the Hyatt hotel. In an exclusive interview with Argentine journalist Jorge Fontevecchia, De Narváez explained: “It was the end of a very tough process — family and professional transformation, and a pressure that pushed me to the edge. A scar I overcame, but the result of phenomenal stress.”