Marta Ortega, heiress of Zara's empire and new strong woman from Ibex
Marta Ortega Pérez does not have an office in Zara even though he has been working in the company for 15 years.The little daughter of Amancio Ortega, 37, who as of April 1 will be at the forefront of the empire that her father raised as a non -executive president, prefers to work in an open space, elbow with elbow with the rest of the team, andvisit almost every week the brand stores to be close to the business of the business.In this sense, he remembers his father, who has never had a separate office at the headquarters of the Group in Arteixo (A Coruña).But those who know her are convinced that the management style of the future president of Inditex will be further from the great hermeticism that characterized the founder of the group.
A sample of this change was the extensive interview that The Wall Street Journal published in September, the first one that Marta Ortega has granted (his father never gave any and for years it was difficult to see him and photograph him in public)."I will always be where the company needs me more," said the Galician businesswoman in what is now interpreted as an advance of her new role in the group, confirmed on Tuesday.In the interview with El Journal, a head of the financial elite, he remembered his beginnings working in a Zara store in King’s Road, in the London neighborhood of Chelsea."The first week I thought I was not going to survive," he said."But then it's as if you got addicted to the store.There are people who never want to leave, ”he said in the article.What does not count in this interview is that, when he went to work as a shop without revealing that she was the boss's daughter, her companions soon found out when she saw the rolex she was carrying.
Until now, Marta Ortega had not had a formal position in the company, although her name was ranging for years to happen to the founder, 85 years.When it is in five months at the head of Inditex (87.000 million euros of stock market value), will become the most powerful (and younger) woman of the Selective Ibex Leaders Club, along with Ana Patricia Botín, executive president of Banco Santander (50.000 million), and former minister Beatriz Corredor, in front of Red Electric (10.000 million).
The businesswoman, born in Vigo on January 10, 1984, has been linked from a young age to the company and is considered a key piece of the strategy.Sources close to Ortega say that he has made "almost everything" in a group, in which "you work hard as a team".His work has focused during the last years on the supervision of the Women's Fashion Design Department, where he works with the head of the collection, Beatriz Padín, and on the development of the brand image."They say that Marta is different from her father, but the times are different, she knows more fashion and knows how social networks work: it appears with a shirt in a magazine and the next day is exhausted," says journalist XabierR.Blanco, author of a couple of books about Inditex (Amancio Ortega.From zero to Zara and Rosalía Mera.The loose thread).
During these years, Zara has made an important transition: the company of the distribution sector has approached the field of fashion, next to its most creative side, seeking contributions from reference figures in the industry.Since 2017, collaborations with Steven Meisel, one of the most successful photographers in the sector, have taken the aesthetic care of fashion magazines to Zara's website.Under their leadership campaigns and collaborations have been launched with other creative reputed such as Art Director Fabien Baron, stylist Karl Templer or filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, as well as the development of Premium collections, such as the recently launched with the singer andBritish-French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg.
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The future president of Inditex is also a client of the great luxury firms and goes promptly to the parades of Valentino and sporadically to those of Narciso Rodriguez and Alber Elbaz, who died in April at age 59 for complications of the COVID and for thethat Ortega has edited a tribute book.The work of another friend, photographer Peter Lindbergh, who died in 2019, stars in an exhibition that opens to the public this Saturday in the port of A Coruña, and which is the result of Ortega's personal effort."Peter was a genius as a photographer, but as a person he was a stratospheric human being, affectionate, patient," he explained a couple of weeks ago about the initiative of Inditex in an email to El País weekly, the first statements to a mediumin Spanish.
Conoce en profundidad todas las caras de la moneda.SuscríbeteBefore graduating in business studies at the European Business School in London in 2007, Marta Ortega studied at the Jesuits of A Coruña and studied Baccalaureate in Switzerland.He likes horses and has participated in equestrian competitions and, although he no longer competes, he has a team.Javier Díaz Giménez, professor of IESE, highlights: "You may not have a long curriculum in business management studies, but it has a specific training in Inditex, you know what the company works and how are the stores".He believes that "family businesses are like this: someone has to represent the shareholder and the important thing is also to know the culture of the family, and that is not learned in Harvard, that will have learned by Marta Ortega of her father".
The reaction of investors to change in the dome, with a 6% drop on Tuesday, has been interpreted as a sample of the fear of Pablo Isla, one of the most respected executives in the world, who arrived in the group in 2005and replaced Amancio Ortega when he left the executive presidency in 2011.Ortega, by decision of his father, maximum shareholder, will be an non -executive president and will continue in principle by developing his current functions, in addition to those of leading a board of directors.The CEO will be Óscar García Meceiras, who arrived in Inditex in March.In The Wall Street Journal, the outgoing president of Inditex, Pablo Isla, defined what was going to be his successor as "humble" and added that, "at the same time, he has strong opinions about many things".
Xabier r.Blanco believes that "the company has it again on top, even if it is without executive powers but of supervision, a family member, returns to the origins".The Galician journalist also highlights that in the dome they remain historical executives of the group such as Carlos Crespo and Pablo del Bado, while remembering that the founder continues to usually go to the offices."I think it's a very guarded relief," he concludes.
The announcement of the appointment clears the doubts about who was going to take the reins of the family group.The alternative could have been his sister Sandra, daughter of Amancio Ortega's first marriage, with Rosalía Mera.But it has long been taken for granted that the chosen one was going to be Marta, the result of the second marriage of the businessman, with Flora Pérez.The future president of Inditex was the one who got his father's ostracism for years, who, especially in his beginnings, wanted to stay out of public life.With her the day of her first wedding appeared, with the rider Sergio Álvarez Moya, in 2012;at the party-host that she organized, with DJ included, and with the employees, when the founder turned 80 in 2016;And at his second wedding, with Carlos Torretta, also linked to the fashion world (now works in Inditex) and son of designer Roberto Torretta.A social change for a billionaire like Amancio Ortega whose first photo did not appear in the company's annual report until 2000.
