Zara Owner Inditex Selects Founder's Daughter As New Chair

The daughter of the billionaire founder of Spanish retail giant Inditex, which owns the high street chains Zara, Bershka and Massimo Dutti, was yesterday named as the company’s next chair in the culmination of a “generational handover process”.

- Rupert Neate

Marta Ortega, 37, the daughter of Amancio Ortega, 85, the majority shareholder of the world’s largest fashion retailer and Spain’s richest man with an estimated £53bn fortune, will be installed as head of the board from 1 April.

Ortega, who has worked at the company for 15 years after starting out as a shop assistant at a Bershka shop on Kings Road, west London, said: “I have always said I would dedicate my life to building upon my parents’ legacy, looking to the future but learning from the past and serving the company, our shareholders and our customers.

“I have lived and breathed this company since my childhood, and I have learned from all the great professionals I have worked with over the last 15 years.”