Flora Perez Marcote, mother of the president of Inditex and wife of the founder, she is now also the president of the Amancio Ortega Foundation. The mother of Martha Ortega, and the second wife of the creator of the textile giant, whom she married in 2001, takes over from her husband, who at the age of 87 leaves the first line of the foundation that bears his name. However, Amancio remains on the board. Let us remember that he has also just been re-elected as a member of the Inditex board of directors.
The Amancio Ortega Foundation finances its own projects and those of public entities of a socio-sanitary nature, but it also operates in the educational field, with study grants abroad. The social work is nourished by the funds it receives from Pontegadea. For the period 2023-2027, the amount committed by the first fortune in Spain is estimated at 488 million euros. Ortega’s estimated net worth, according to the Forbes list, is now around 83 billion euros.
The founder’s wife has been a member of the company’s board of directors since December 2015, representing Pontegadea Inversiones, an entity that holds 50% of the group’s share capital. She was already present before through another of the Ortega family’s control companies, Gartler.
Pérez Marcote is also a member of the board of trustees of the MOP Foundation, created last year by his daughter and whose board of trustees also includes her husband, Carlos Torretta. The son of the Spanish-Argentine dressmaker and the president of Inditex are expecting their second child together, a third for Marta, who was a mother in her first marriage. The new son or daughter of Marta Ortega will be the sixth grandchild of her father, Amancio Orteg. In addition to Marta’s three children, Amancio Ortega is the grandfather of the other three that her eldest daughter, Sandra, has had, called Martiño, Antía and Uxía.
The parent company of the family office
Pontegadea Inversiones is the parent company of the family office, Pontegadea Inmobiliaria, which brings together many of the group’s assets in this business area, and Pontegadea GB 2020, a subsidiary established in 2020 to insulate investments in British territory in the event of hypothetical impacts of Brexit. These companies sustain a large part of Amancio’s immense fortune and therefore will be key in the future in terms of inheritance. Marta Ortega was appointed last year as director of both Pontegadea Inversiones and the subsidiary in the United Kingdom.
“Since its constitution, it has carried out intense work related to the implementation and development of its programs, mainly in the social area, as well as the institutional representation of the entity,” says the statement from the listed company on Monday.
Flowers, as they call her in her close circleAt 70, he is an essential person in the listed company. From the very board of directors of Inditex or the patrimonial companies to Pontegadea, the investment arm, of which she is vice president.
Flora’s family (blood uncles of Marta Ortega) plays an important role in the company. His brother Óscar, as director of Zara, and Jorge, as director of Massimo Dutti. His other sister, María Luisa Pérez, is married to a historic Inditex manager, Carlos Mato, who was president of Zara Spain until 2020 after being general director of Bershka and being responsible for Zara international.
Flora Pérez Marcote determinedly promotes many of the solidarity aspects of the company, such as the million-dollar donation from the foundation for the purchase of proton therapy equipment against cancer for ten Spanish public hospitals.
The announcement made this Monday by the Amancio Ortega Foundation The fact that Pérez Marcote assumes the presidency of the social work of the first fortune in Spain ensures the achievement of projects that in the next five years alone will amount to 500 million euros.
Together with José Arnau, also vice president of Inditex and Pontegadea, the mother of Marta Ortega personally attends many of the public events organized by the Foundation. Family control is total if we take into account that Marta is now first vice president, a restructuring that does not surprise anyone and that maintains the road map of the succession process that entailed the replacement of Pablo Isla and the appointment of Marta Ortega as non-executive president of Inditex.
The foundation was born in 2001, the same year that Flora and Amancio got married but also the same year that Inditex went public, beginning a brilliant and very profitable career in its two stages, especially in that of Paul Island and that now continues in an upward direction with his successor, Óscar García Maceiras. Flora became part of the board of trustees in 2003, and in 2005 she was already vice president in 2005.
Inditex says in the documents that it presents to the directors that Flora Pérez Marcote began her professional career at Zara “performing different positions related to the design and purchase of products for this company”. And she refers that she has extensive experience as an administrator of commercial companies that she began after the textile company became listed.