José Manuel Vargas has been a senior advisor at Rhône since 2006 and partner and managing director of the firm since 2017. However, Mr. Vargas has temporarily stepped down as managing director of Rhône to devote his efforts to Maxam, a company within the investment portfolio of Rhône, while actively maintaining his other positions in the firm.

In May 2020, Mr. Vargas assumed the office of Executive Chairman and CEO at Maxam. Previously he had been Chairman and CEO of Aena SME, SA, where he led the restructuring process, partial privatization and IPO in 2015. He has also served as CEO and Financial Director of Vocento and CEO of ABC. Previously, he had been Financial Director and General Secretary of JOTSA (of the Philipp Holzmann group). Mr. Vargas has served on several boards, such as those of Cadena COPE, Net TV and Diario El Correo. In 2015 he won the prize for Best Executive of the Year awarded by the Spanish Executives Assocation (Asociación Española de Directivos -AED) and was named Person of the Year in the economic and financial field by Spanish economic newspaper El Economista.

He graduated in Business and Economics from the Complutense University of Madrid and holds a Law Degree from UNED.

He is also a chartered accountant. Mr. Vargas currently serves also on the Board of Directors of Fluidra, a company in Rhône's investment portfolio.