Inditex appoints executive team to lead sustainability transformation

By

Triana Alonso

Translated by
Nicola Mira

Published
Dec 19, 2019

Inditex has created a senior executive team to oversee its evolution towards full sustainability. Pursuing the transformation strategy set to culminate in 2025, announced at the shareholders’ AGM last July, the Spanish apparel giant has appointed with immediate effect its current financial controller, Javier Losada, as the new head of Inditex’s sustainability department. Losada’s appointment coincides with a series of strategic changes within the group’s senior management team, as was confirmed to FashionNetwork.com by Inditex.

Losada, regarded as one of the most trusted collaborators of Inditex’s President Pablo Isla, will be replaced by Lorena Lema as financial controller. Lema has been working with Inditex for almost 14 years and will vacate the position of inventory control director, a position for which, as FashionNetwork.com has learned, no replacement has yet been appointed.

At the same time, the CFO of Zara, Miguel Diaz Miranda, will become head of sustainability for the fast-fashion label. Diaz Miranda, who has been with Inditex for three decades, will be in charge of implementing within Zara the strategy through which the group intends to ensure, by 2025, that 80% of the energy consumed at its premises comes from renewable sources, and that all the cotton, linen and polyester used by Inditex’s various labels is organic, sustainable or recycled.

Also, under Losada’s leadership, Luis Coloma, until now in charge of the group's infrastructure, will replace Antonio Álvarez as environmental director. In parallel, Inditex has created the post of head of diversity, inclusion and equal opportunity policies, reporting to the head of HR Begoña López, which will be taken on by Féliz Poza.

This reshuffle to Inditex’s senior management team follows in the wake of the changes to the group’s board of directors that were announced at the presentation of Inditex’s Q3 results on December 11, and which will be presented for ratification at the next shareholders' meeting. They include the appointment of Anne Lange to the group's board of directors, whose membership has increased to 11 after the appointment of Carlos Crespo as CEO last summer, as well as the approval of the membership of the group's new sustainability commission, chaired by Denise Patricia Kingsmill and comprising José Arnau Sierra, Pilar López Álvarez, José Luis Durán Schulz and Anne Lange herself.

In the first nine months of the year, Inditex’s revenue grew by 7.5 % to €19.820 billion, with a net income of €2.720 billion, equivalent to a 12% increase.