This man is one of the richest on the planet. Yet no one knows his name even though his products are purchased by millions of people every day.
In the closed circle of billionaires, many are known to the general public: Bernard Arnault or Vincent Bolloré for the French, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg or even Elon Musk on the United States side. But in the world, 2781 people have a fortune of at least 10 figures. These very rich people are for the most part very discreet, as is often the rule in the business world. But if the business is so flourishing, it is because there are necessarily a large number of customers. However, they often do not know from whom they are really buying a product.
If the bosses of certain brands are media or famous, many hold an empire hidden from ordinary mortals. This is particularly the case of the second richest man in Europe, behind Bernard Arnault. His fortune stands at $103 billion, according to Forbes’ 2024 ranking. However, his journey is worthy of a Hollywood scenario.
Born to a railway worker father and a domestic mother, having left school at 12 to go work and provide for the financial needs of the family home, Amancio Ortega Gaona nevertheless became the 13th richest person in the world, the 2nd on the Old Continent and the first in Spain. Does his name mean nothing to you? Yet millions of French people buy his clothes every year. This native of La Coruña, now 88 years old, is quite simply the founder and former boss of Zara.
In France, its history is unknown. As a teenager, when he had no choice but to work, this Spaniard launched into ready-to-wear fashion, at the very bottom of the ladder. First a courier then a fashion designer, he began by making various clothes in the 1950s and 1960s, before launching his own business in his hometown: GOA (his initials backwards), which became Zara in 1975.
Originally, the brand should have been called Zorba, like the name of a famous film from the 1960s. However, a bar near the first store was already named that and Amancio Ortega Gaona had to change the name, so that he had received the letters to affix his sign. So this was transformed into Zara.
Since then, it is an understatement to say that the octogenarian has had a success story with more than 5,800 stores now open all over the world for 170,000 employees. In France, the brand is the leader in ready-to-wear with a turnover of nearly 1.8 billion euros. Now retired, Amancio Ortega Gaona, however, remains the majority shareholder of the brand which also owns, Pull and Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka and Stradivarius. While living in the greatest discretion in the depths of Galicia.