Zara heiress Marta Ortega to take the reins on April 1

Marta Amancio Ortega, the 38-year-old daughter of Amancio Ortega who founded Inditex, which owns fashion retailer Zara, will take the reins of the company as chairperson on April 1, media reports said. 

She replaces Pablo Isla, who oversaw a massive expansion of the firm over the past decade.

"We have been preparing for this transition for a long time," said Pablo Isla, “Marta has been working in the company for 15 years. She has led many projects and knows it like the back of her hand,” he said at a press conference to announce the transition.

The change at the top at the Spanish fashion retailer is said to have been engineered by Marta’s father Amancio, who himself resigned from his position as chairman in 2011 while still owning 59% of the company’s shares. 

Marta is said to be long groomed by her father and was expected to helm  the world's biggest fashion retailer ahead of Sweden's H&M, with roughly 6,500 shops globally.

Marta is credited for helping Zara develop campaigns with some of the best-known creative people in the fashion sector such as US fashion photographer Steven Meisel and Oscar-nominated Italian film director Luca Guadagnino.

Marta is also hailed for  helping to set Zara's image apart from its competitors by opening stores on streets dominated by designer boutiques.

Marta did her schooling in Switzerland and graduated from the European Business School in London in 2007, after which she briefly worked as a shop assistant at a Zara store in London to better understand how they operate. Now in her new position, she is projected to earn one million euros ($1.1 million) as the chairwoman of Inditex, which also owns brands like Massimo Dutti, Bershka and Stradivarius along with Zara.