Amancio Ortega Gaona is the founding chairman of the Spanish clothing holding company Inditex, which includes the global fashion brand Zara. He is widely recognized as one of the most influential figures in modern retail and fast fashion. Over the years, Amancio Ortega Gaona has consistently ranked among the wealthiest individuals in the world.

Amancio Ortega Gaona was born on March 28, 1936, in Bustango de Arbas, a small village of 60 inhabitants in northern Spain, as the youngest of four siblings. He spent his childhood in León. At the age of 14, his family moved to La Coruña, where he worked as a railway laborer due to his father’s job.

One formative incident deeply affected him during his youth. While returning home from school with his mother, they stopped at a shop where his mother attempted to purchase goods on credit. The request was rejected, leaving Ortega feeling humiliated. This experience led him to decide never to return to school.

As a teenager, Amancio Ortega Gaona began working as an apprentice at a shirt manufacturer named Gala, located in the city center of La Coruña. At the age of 16, he developed two core business principles that would define his career: 1. Produce exactly what the customer wants. 2. Deliver the desired product faster than any competitor.

Galicia offered an ideal environment for implementing this vision. Due to limited job opportunities, many adult men worked at sea, while their wives remained at home and were willing to sew for modest wages. Ortega organized thousands of women into sewing cooperatives, laying the foundation for his production model. His first company, GOA, focused on quilted fabric bathrobes, anticipating strong demand.

In 1966, Amancio Ortega Gaona married his first wife, Rosalia Mera, and together they entered the ready-to-wear clothing business. They initially produced garments in the living room of their home.

In 1972, he formally established his first company, Confecciones Goa, named after the reverse initials of his surname. The company initially manufactured bathrobes and underwear. In 1975, he opened his first retail store in La Coruña under the name Zara. The Zara brand expanded rapidly across Spain as a chain of stores.

As the business grew, Ortega diversified into additional brands. In 1985, he founded Inditex as an innovative force in ready-to-wear retail. Inditex expanded across Europe and globally, with Amancio Ortega Gaona retaining a 59.29% ownership stake in the holding.

The Inditex Group includes globally recognized brands such as Zara, Massimo Dutti, Oysho, Zara Home, Kiddy’s Class, Tempe, Stradivarius, Pull & Bear, and Bershka, employing more than 92,000 people worldwide.

Zara began its international expansion in 1988 with its first overseas store in Portugal, followed by an outlet store in New York and a Paris flagship in 1990. The company opened its 6,000th store on Oxford Street in London. Zara operates 46 stores in the United States, 347 in China, and 1,938 in Spain.

In 1991, Ortega acquired the Massimo Dutti brand, which later entered the Turkish market in 2004. Inditex itself entered Turkey in 1990 with the Zara brand. In 2001, the company went public, raising USD 600 million and solidifying its global brand status.

Inditex operates in 88 countries with more than 6,700 stores and nearly 140,000 employees. Zara alone accounts for 1,763 stores worldwide. The group entered Turkey in 1997 and currently operates 152 stores there, including 33 Zara locations.

By 2012, Inditex had become one of the world’s largest apparel retailers, generating USD 21 billion in revenue with eight major brands, including Uterqüe.

Known for his dislike of wearing ties and avoiding media appearances, Amancio Ortega Gaona rarely gives interviews. A book about his life titled Amancio Ortega: From Zero to Zara was published in 2004.

Marriages:
1) In 1966, he married Rosalia Mera. They separated in 1986 and divorced in 1997. They had two children, Sandra Ortega Mera and Marcos Ortega Mera. Marcos was born with an intellectual disability. Rosalia Mera passed away on August 15, 2013, in La Coruña, Spain, at the age of 69 due to a cerebral hemorrhage.
2) In 2001, he married Flora Pérez. They have one daughter, Marta Ortega Pérez (born 1984).

After retiring from his executive role at Inditex in 2011, Amancio Ortega Gaona has lived a modest life with his second wife in a standard apartment in La Coruña, Spain.

From 2013 onward, Amancio Ortega Gaona ranked among the top three richest individuals in the world according to Forbes. On October 23, 2015, he was briefly named the world’s richest person with a net worth of USD 79 billion before being surpassed hours later by Bill Gates following a rise in Microsoft stock. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, as of December 27, 2016, Ortega ranked third globally with a personal fortune of USD 71.2 billion.

Source: Biyografiler.com