From the store to the presidency: Marta Ortega's footsteps to Inditex's top
Power or chronicle of an appointment announced, prepared and anticipated by the most influential economic journal in the world.
By P.S.
"in the first week I thought I wouldn't survive." In her only interview to date Marta Ortega Pérez (Vigo, 1984) was completely sincere about the first job she did in Inditex, the company she will preside over from next April: that of a clerk in one of the more than 7,000 establishments Zara has spread over 93 countries around the world. Specifically, on Oxford Street (London), where Ortega folded T-shirts as one more employee. "the store is the real experience within Inditex. The rest of the posts are subordinate. It's a lot of physical work, but it's the place where you get in touch with fashion and the customer and where you draw the conclusions for the design. I know Marta loved it, "a person from her team told this magazine.
Indeed, what Inditex's business culture calls "shop experience" is one of the inescapable steps in developing a professional career in the company founded by Amancio Ortega in 1985. And, on his way to the presidency, Marta Ortega Pérez fulfilled it without hesitation, just as its 162,000 workers do. And it is that, as he acknowledged in the already famous Wall Street Journal interview, "I will be where the company needs me." 15 years ago, at the store. Since next April, in the presidency.
From Oxford Street Ortega Pérez, who by then had already graduated in Business Sciences from the University of London School of European Business, where he specialized in international entrepreneurship, he took the leap to the Bershka plant-another of Inditex's brands-at the Tordera business estate in Barcelona. From there, the young woman moved to Arteixo, the company's headquarters in La Coruña where, although her academic training had been oriented towards management, she was able to develop her true passion: fashion and the most creative aspect of the business. In Arteixo, without a separate office or defined office, her comrades defined her as "the right hand" of Beatriz Padín, director of Zara woman and, in turn, Amancio Ortega's right hand.
Ortega Pérez 's work has been key to the fact that, in recent times, Zara has developed product lines with a strong design component. This is the case with Studio or SRPLS. For years, in addition to doing what the company defines as "travel of inspiration" and covering in a timely manner fashion weeks, in particular those in New York-where two of his favorite designers, Alexander Wang and Narciso Rodríguez, with whom he is also a great friend-and that of the Paris couture-there are two of his favorite designers, Alexander Wang and Narciso Rodríguez-are present. Author of the four dresses he wore at his wedding with Carlos Torretta and one of the guests to the liaison, he has taken charge of signing the most influential stylists in the sector, such as Marie-Amelie Sauvé, Karl Templer and Suzanne Koller, for brand campaigns, which usually immortalize photographers such as Steven Meisel or Mario Sorrenti, regular collaborators of great fashion houses such as Chanel, Dior or Prada and magazines such as vogue. A role she herself describes perfectly: "Building bridges between walkways and the street, past and present, technology and fashion, art and functionality."
It was precisely Meisel who was in charge of portraying her for the WSJ interview which, in some way, anticipated her new role in Inditex, and from which details were emerging that are of particular relevance today. For example, this statement by the CEO of the company, Pablo Isla-"is very humble, but has an opinion of everything"; another of the protagonist, assuring that she would like to stay "close to the product. I think that's what my father always did. " Or, above all, the title of the report: Marta Ortega Pérez: Zara's secret weapon.
