Ex-Italian PM Enrico Letta Joins Inditex’s International Advisory Team

Inditex sets up its international advisory board. The body, whose first meeting was held on November 27th, has incorporated former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta as chairman. Other members include Taeho Bark, Simon Fraser, Rafael Gil-Tienda, Anne Lange, Enrique Lores and Marcos Troyjo.

The creation of the international advisory board of the Spanish fashion retail giant was announced in July of this year, with the aim of advising the board of directors and management on geopolitics, international economics and global affairs. Made up of world-renowned experts and leaders, the body is attached to the audit and compliance committee of the board of Zara’s parent company. This move by Inditex was innovative in the country, with little tradition of companies setting up such committees.

The committee ‘s functions include ensuring that risks are maintained and managed within accepted tolerance thresholds, and it must reassess, at least annually, the most significant financial and non-financial risks, their level of tolerance and the measures planned to mitigate their impact should they materialize. It must also promote a corporate culture aimed at making risk a factor to be taken into account in decision-making at all levels of the company and the group.

Letta (Pisa, Italy, 1966) is, in addition to the chairman, one of its most prominent, and most media-conscious, members. He was prime minister of Italy from 2013 to 2014 and leader of the Italian Democratic Party from 2021 to 2023. At the end of his term, he resigned his seat in the Italian Parliament and moved to Paris to head the Paris School of International Affairs at the city’s Institute of Political Studies. But his political career, which began after his time as a teacher, dates back to 1998, when he was appointed Minister of European Affairs. Between 1999 and 2021, he was Minister of Industry and, between 2004 and 2009, a member of the European Parliament. He is currently president of the Jacques Delors Institute and dean of the IE School of Politics, Economics and Global Affair, among others.

One of the milestones of his political career is the high-level report he drafted at the request of the European Council in 2023 on the future of the single market. The report Much more than a market was presented on April 17th, 2024. The report advocated the “freedom to research, explore and create without constraints”, as well as the need for European companies to grow in order to compete on a global scale and the removal of administrative and bureaucratic barriers.

Enrico Letta drafted a report on the future of the single market at the request of the European Council

Taeho Bark (1952, South Korea) is the first president of the Lee & Ko Global Commerce Institute (GCI), founded in September 2017. He served as minister of trade in the South Korean government between December 2011 and March 2013, as well as chairman of the Korea International Trade Commission.

Rafael Gil-Tienda holds a law degree from Oxford, an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley and has a track record of more than 25 years of experience in international banking. Simon Frasers is a former head of the British diplomatic service and founder of Flint Global, a regulatory affairs consultancy.

Joining the list is Anne Lange, an independent director of Inditex from December 2019 until 2024. A graduate of l’Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris and l’ École Nationale d’Administration (ENA), she has more than 25 years of experience in technological innovation. Enrique Lores, President and CEO of the printer and computer company HP, and Marcos Troyjo, a diplomat, economist and graduate in Sociology from the University of Sao Paulo, conclude the group.

The composition of the international advisory board was announced on the same day that Inditex presented its results for the first nine months of the year. The Spanish group closed the first nine months of the year with a 2.7% increase in turnover, with sales of €28.171 billion, compared to €27.422 billion in the same period of the previous year. The company ended the period with a net profit of €4.622 billion, an increase of 3.9% compared to €4.459 billion in the first three quarters of 2024.