Inditex president Marta Ortega demonstrates that she is Zara’s ‘secret weapon’

AS International Women’s Day approaches on March 8, Marta Ortega prepares to celebrate her first year as Inditex president.

She is the 39-year-old daughter of Amancio Ortega, Spain’s richest man and one of the richest in the world, who founded the Inditex empire based on the Zara clothing chain.

Kantar BrandZ, which ranks world brands, placed Inditex at the head of Spain’s top brands in 2022 for the fifth consecutive year, ahead of Movistar, Iberdrola or Santander.

Ortega succeeded Pablo Isla, who twice received Harvard Business Review’s Best-performing CEO award.  He was Inditex’s executive president between 2012 and 2022 and CEO between 2011 and 2021 and when the company announced in November 2021 that Ortega would take over as executive president in April 2022, share prices fell.

Nevertheless, last year’s results have been hailed as “spectacular.”  With net profits of €3.1 billion in 2022 and a 19 per cent increase in sales, Amancio Ortega’s daughter demonstrated the wisdom of a meticulous strategy which began in 2011.

After finishing a degree in Business Studies in London, she began working at the age of 23 in Zara’s Chelsea branch, before moving to Bershka and eventually to the Inditex head office in Arteixo (La Coruña).

There was never any doubt that Ortega, described by the Wall Street Journal as “Zara’s secret weapon”, would take over from her father.

“She has lived the business from the inside, alongside Amancio,” journalist Jesus Salgado Alvarez said recently. “He saw that they shared the same interests. She was the one, and insiders never questioned her appointment.”

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