The seamstress who became Spain’s richest woman

• Tweet
• 

• Tweet
• 

Rosalía Mera, who died on August 15 following a stroke, age 69, rose from being a seamstress set to work at 11 years of age to become Spain’s richest woman. She and her husband at the time, Amancio Ortega, opened their first Zara store in 1975, and created their holding company Inditex ten years later. Today it’s the world’s largest clothing retailer, with sales last year of $21.25 billion. Though divorced from Ortega and not active in running the company for more than 20 years, Mera’s legacy includes not just a commercial empire, but Spain’s fashion trademark recognized around the globe. Amongst others, Inditex owns brands like Masssimo Dutti and Bershka in additon to Zara.

The two children she had with Ortega, Sandra and Marcos, will likely inherit the nearly 7% stake in Inditex their mother held. They will also benefit from the $600 million she netted from Inditex’s successful 2001 IPO. Forbes estimates that Mera will have left behind a fortune of $6.1 billion – sufficient to rank her as the 66th wealthiest person in the world as of March 2013.

Rosalía Mera, 1944-2013

However, Ortega’s youngest daughter, from his second marriage, Marta is seen as the Inditex heiress. Neither of her half-siblings have shown much interest in the textile world and Mera never pushed them in that direction. Ortega, the third richest person in the world on the back of his 60% shareholding in Inditex, has been grooming Marta for the top job, starting her at the bottom with shelf-stacking.

Barely 30, she now has an executive position in head office. There is no date set in stone for her to take over. The famously low-key Ortega himself stood down from an executive role two years ago when current Inditex chairman and chief executive 49-year old Pablo Isla took over.

The self-made Mera had always gone her own way. With inequality and class differences growing more acute in Spain, Mera was known for her modesty and for down-to-earth attitude. Even though she was Spain’s richest woman she remained proud of her working-class upbringing in Spain’s northern region of Galicia. “It’s tremendous that money makes people important,” she was quoted as saying a few years ago. Nor was she deferential to the establishment. She was a strong critic of the current conservative government’s plans to change Spanish abortion law. Her entrepreneurial and hard-working spirit serves as an inspiration for hundreds of thousands of Spaniards who are suffering the consequences of the economic crisis.