Marta Ortega, the woman who was going to reign

Women with chairs at the power tables of fashion: there are. Like the witches, yes, but in an eminently male business coven. Executive directors, CEOs, presidents, barely represent 14 percent, according to the report The Glass Runway published by the consulting firm McKinsey in 2018. It turns out that there are fewer women, much fewer, in leadership positions in the clothing business than in the aviation industry or the financial sector. As of April 1, 2022, Marta Ortega Pérez will be one of them. The stock market assets of Inditex, the multinational that will have to preside then, plummeted 6.1 percent – ​​up to 27.8 euros per share, 5,600 million in losses – on the same morning of Tuesday, November 30, when it was announced your appointment. The biggest fall of the Ibex 35 of the day.

Pablo Isla, still president of the Galician conglomerate, defends that what happens in the Stock Market is better to take it easy, that "the price of the share must be seen in the long term". A couple of days ago, one man replaced another at the top of Twitter and the shares of the birding network soared in New York's Down Jones. It happens, on the other hand, that in the end the news has been the "exit of Pablo Isla" and the "stock market slap" (sic), a reading of events that does not require too many lights to understand. The general press, and the economic one as well, lacked time to position themselves at the father's right hand: "Who are the Inditex directors who have 'proposed' Marta Ortega?" reads a headline. Another: "Isla, the man who made Inditex the world leader in textiles." The articles dedicated to celebrating the excellence of the Madrid executive, a member of the body of state lawyers, buried those dedicated to remembering who will take over from him in the middle of the afternoon. "Meticulous and moderate", they point out there. "Discreet, familiar", they gloss there. Photo galleries are dedicated to her, of course.

That this was going to be the chronicle of an announced misogyny had no loss. Not so much because of a gender issue as a class one. That thing about being who you are. Because she is not just any woman, that she is the daughter of the richest man in Spain and eleventh in the world (according to the latest Forbes ranking). Here is an illuminating example: when, in January 2020, Helena Helmersson was promoted to executive director of H&M, Inditex's direct rival in the arena of the consumer fashion market, nothing happened. Well, yes, that the Swedish giant listed on the OMX index as he did not remember in five years. For that matter, no one came up with the headline "Stockholm Stupor" then. Nor question the value of the executive: on the group's payroll since 1997, hardened in the position of head of production of the commercial office in Dhaka (Bangladesh) in 2007, at the head of the social ethics and sustainability division in 2010... It was the first time in 73 years, moreover, that the position was no longer held by a man, but by a member of the founding family of the Scandinavian emporium, the Perssons. Stefan, his current patriarch, is the Swedish Amancio Ortega, also because of what he has in the bank. In May of last year he left the presidency in favor of his son, Karl-Johan, to date that which in English responds to the acronym CEO, chief executive officer. And now let's talk about meritocracy.

Aries, You're feeling indecisive about something that you're emotionally invested in. This could go for your finance… https://t.co/cMEafL2kyt

— Tatiana Tue Jul 13 16:55:25 +0000 2021

At least in the stormy waters of the fashion business, the first unwritten commandment stipulates that in order to conserve essence/values ​​and independence –let alone creative integrity– it is better not to throw yourself on the floor. Complicated: sometimes there is no choice but to capitalize to stay afloat and, other times, the natural commercial expansion or the body asks for it (depending on the ambition). Be that as it may, if investment partners, large or small, enter the rag, the important thing is to keep the majority of the shares so that everything continues to stay at home. Because, in effect, this is usually (used) to be an eminently family sector. Italians know this well, whose textile industry, the second most important in the country after the automobile industry, is a famiglia thing, no matter how many foreign CEOs come and go from their offices. The Armanis. The Pradas. The Zegnas. The Marenzi (Herno). The Cucinellis. The Maramotti (Max Mara). The Paone (Kiton). The Della Valles (Tod's). It is true that the list shows more and more sensitive declines, such as those of the Versace in 2018 or the Etro this year (L Catterton, a venture capital group controlled by LVMH, closed the purchase of 60 percent in July and immediately plugged them into Fabrizio Cardinali, formerly Dolce & Gabbana, as CEO). Right now, the Ferragamo and the Missoni are in a state of alarm. "It makes me sad that my grandchildren will not grow up in the workshop, but he is the CEO, what can I do," lamented Margherita Missoni in May, when Livio Proli dismissed her as creative director of the main line of the firm they founded. her grandparents, Ottavio and Rosita. And that the Italian Strategic Fund only owns 41.2 percent. However, the list is still long because executive witnesses are passed from generation to generation. And it is taken for granted that children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nephews, great-nephews or cousins ​​have been educated and trained from a young age to guarantee continuity (note the use of the plural masculine, because, yes, most are still men). Exactly like the offspring of Bernard Arnault, who he has strategically placed in the different divisions of Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy.

"The billionaire kid with the Midas touch," the media clamored when Alexandre Arnault, 29, third in line to the throne, became chief executive of Tiffany & Co., the new jewel in LVMH's crown, earlier this year. . "The most recent and powerful player of the first family of luxury" or "The son of the richest man in Europe who is revolutionizing the watch industry", they released from Frédéric, recently occupied the position in question at TAG Heuer, in October , with 26. No one has bothered to report whether they started from scratch by placing bags on the shelves of Louis Vuitton or in the customer service of the Casa Padre watch division. Yesterday, the first thing that made headlines about Marta Ortega, 37, was that she "started folding shirts at Zara" (Bershka, actually). An 'exemplary' past as a shop assistant. With gold Rolex on her wrist, as they detected hers then just as long-suffering companions of hers. Not even a word about the rest of the fifteen years that she has been working in her father's multinational company; if anything, at the end, by the time she has given up reading. The interested party tells it in the official press release: "I have lived this company since my childhood and I have learned from all the great professionals with whom I have worked during the last 15 years. I have always said that I would dedicate my life to developing the legacy of my parents, looking to the future but learning from the past and being at the service of the company, our shareholders and our customers, in the place where I am most needed". But t-shirts. It's not the first time it's been said about her, either.

The question is: why sell the rise of Don Amancio's daughter by appealing to the myth of the culture of effort? Or, who cares about her? It is normal for the networks to burn. Brave need to insinuate that the millionaire heiress of a billionaire has earned promotion in the family business with the sweat of her brow, not by mere genes. That on top of her we have seen her in equestrian competitions, very poor Amazon, since she was a teenager. That they have told us – this Tuesday again – how she lives and what she spends her fortune on. That we have attended her extravagant birthday and her two weddings, with a Valentino wedding dress and a Peter Lindbergh photo album the second. She has also been caught in the factories of Arteixo. Or she present at the Inditex shareholders' meetings. But that has never seemed interesting. That is the question: Marta Ortega has always been meat from pink-yellow pages rather than salmon. Not even the spread that The Wall Street Journal magazine dedicated to him last August, "Zara's secret weapon" on the cover (which he would later reproduce ¡Hello! exclusively), deserved more space here than that of the people sections / gossip. How to perceive her as a professional. Putting all the blame on us journalists, however, would not be fair at all. That is the problem: the communicative clumsiness of the Galician group, that belief above good and bad information (we neither affirm nor deny), the opacity. It cannot be accepted that the announcement of the appointment hardly affects the work carried out in the women's division of Zara by the second daughter of Don Amancio. In what capacity? At the press conference, Pablo Isla wanted to defend how much the next (non-executive) president of the multinational knows about fashion and image. Just what any shareholder or future investor would want to hear. Perhaps if he had explained that the Peter Lindbergh retrospective recently opened in A Coruña or that the latest campaigns for the group's flagship photographed by Steven Meisel, Craig McDean and Mario Sorrenti had been all her efforts, they would even have applauded. Maybe.

One final consideration remains: that it is possible that the markets trembled not precisely because of the ascension of Marta Ortega (who has shown surprise, pretends, that similar movements were already suspected months ago), or not only, but also because of the one who is a brand-new advisor delegate, Óscar García Maceiras, a lawyer from A Coruña who landed in Arteixo in March, from Banco de Santander. Behind him, the weight of true corporate responsibility, as the highest authority in terms of policies and strategies, which begin with the complete digital and sustainable transformation of its business model. A business that, as of April 1, 2022, will once again have a woman in a position of power (never forget that Rosalía Mera, who died in 2013, as well as the first wife of Amancio Ortega, was co-founder of his current empire. And philanthropist long before him). Let's celebrate at least that, which is not little.