The president of Inditex turns 40 this Wednesday. She does so as a mother of a large family – she had her third child not even a month ago – and she is established in the Olympus of the most powerful women on the planet. Despite her influence and wealth, Marta Ortega lives a peaceful and discreet life in A Coruña, with her husband, Carlos Torretta, and her children.
Born in Vigo, she is the youngest of Amancio Ortega’s three children and the only one from his marriage to Flora Pérez, whom he married after divorcing Rosalía Mera. She trained, first in A Coruña and then in some of the best educational institutions in the world, from Switzerland to London, where she graduated in Business. After completing her studies, she devoted herself to learning about the operation of Inditex, a conglomerate that her father founded to which seven clothing companies belong: Zara, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Pull
The woman who is today president of the textile giant started in the sector from the bottom. At the request of her father, she worked as a sales assistant in a Zara store on Oxford Street in London. Marta went through almost all the departments of the company, despite the fact that at the age of 17 she was already a millionaire thanks to a sale of shares for which it is estimated she received around 15,000 million pesetas. Currently, Forbes estimates that her personal wealth amounts to around €75 million.
Marta Ortega reaches 40 in a fulfilling moment on a personal and professional level. In April 2022 she replaced Pablo Isla as president of Inditex. Last summer she presented the balance of her first year at the head of the company. The results were overwhelming: 32,000 million euros in sales and 4,130 million in profits, which represented an increase of 27% in profits and 17.5 in sales compared to the previous year.
Its role as a world leader in the sector is strengthened. Last month the British newspaper Evening Standard named her the most influential person in the fashion world of 2023, ahead of Bernad Arnault, owner of the luxury conglomerate LVMH, and François-Henri Pinault, president and CEO of Kering.
Along with work, his other passion is horse riding. She competed professionally for a few years and his father even set up a venue in A Coruña to hold competitions, Casas Novas. There she lived her first courtship. After dating the Catalan jockey Gonzalo Testa for two years, Marta began a relationship with the Asturian Sergio Álvarez Moya, one of the most prominent jockeys in Europe. They married in 2012 and as a result of their union, their first son was born, Amancio, who will turn 11 years old in March. The couple divorced in 2015.
In November 2018, she married for the second time with Carlos Torretta, son of designer Roberto Torreta, after a secret relationship of two years. It was a social event held in A Coruña with the bride dressed in Valentino, performances by Nora Jones and Coldplay and 400 guests. On March 22, 2020, with the country newly confined due to the coronavirus pandemic, her daughter Matilda was born. She and Torretta have just welcomed little Manuel. As soon as her recent motherhood allows it, she will go again to his office at the Inditex facilities in Arteixo, from where she runs an empire that has 1,800 stores spread across 95 countries for which 165,000 professionals work.
Like her father, whom she adores, Marta tries to escape the spotlight and not attract attention – she has only given two interviews, to The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times – but it is evident that she has not achieved her goal.