\
Amancio Ortega

Amancio Ortega

Net Worth

$74,000,000,000

Born in (City)

Basdongo de Arbas

Born in (Country)

Spain

Date of Birth

28th December, 1936

Date of Death

-

Mother

Josefa Gaona Hernández

Father

Antonio Ortega Rodríguez

About

Amancio Ortega is a Spanish businessman. He is the richest billionaire of the retail business and the second richest person in the world. His net worth speaks for his hard work and effort that he has put in to climb the ladder of success. He is the chairman of Inditex Fashion. This fashion group is best known for their fashion brand Zara clothing and accessory. It was in the year Oct 2015, that he had been ranked the richest man in the world by Forbes magazine, beating Bill Gates in the process. However, the rank lasted for only four hours. Аmаnсіо іѕ thе уоungеѕt сhіld оf hіѕ раrеntѕ Јоѕеfа Gаоnа Неrnándеz аnd Аntоnіо Оrtеgа Rоdríguеz. Не wаѕ bоrn оn March 28, 1936 іn Lеón, Ѕраіn. Аmаnсіо’ѕ fаthеr wаѕ аn оrdіnаrу rаіlwау еmрlоyee. He moved to the Iberian textile capital with his family. It is hard to believe that the richest billionaire in the retail industry had to leave school at the age of 14. Due to financial pressure at home, he started working as a delivery for a shirt maker. Eventually, he became the assistant of a tailor. Later in the year of 1963, Ortega started his first factory. After running this company for two years, he opened Confecciones Goa. It is a textile manufacturing and marketing company. He is now a leading businessman with billions of turnovers. Now, Amancio Ortega possessions include ; Yacht :valued at $7.5 million. Known as Valoria, this 23-year-old beauty is 6.39 meters wide and 31.5 meters long. The name for the yacht owes its origin to his mother’s birthplace, Valladolid. House :Quite like him, his homes also have a reclusive bearing. One of his houses is in Zalaeta, at Ozran Beach. This is where he lives with his family. There is another home at A Coruna, this is the place where he would live with his first wife and children. This home looks more like a middle-class dwelling. Jet : He owns the Global Express BD700 which flies at a maximum speed of 950 kilometers per hour. FOUNDATION AMANCIO ORTEGA : He also founded Amancio Ortega Foundation in 2001. This foundation is a non-profit organization. It promotes educational and social culture. The Amancio Ortega Foundation intends to strengthen with its initiatives the most solid social ties, those which grant value to proven work and experience throughout the years. Based on the conviction that persistence and effort bring growth to society, the Amancio Ortega Foundation encourages plans and projects in the fields of education and social care, intending to contribute to progress in the basic aspects of an inclusive society. Inspired by the principles of commitment and loyalty, and awareness of the fact that there are no definitive solutions, the Amancio Ortega Foundation provides specific actions which mean a step forward in the individual history of all of whom are part of our current society. Аmаnсіо Оrtеgа bеіng аmоng thе rісhеѕt реrѕоnаlіtіеѕ glоbаllу lіvеѕ а ѕіmрlе lіfе аnd kеерѕ hіѕ lіfе рrіvаtе. Even at hіѕ аgе, hе іѕ ѕtіll іn thе buѕіnеѕѕ іnduѕtrу, аnd іn rесеnt уеаrѕ wе can only expect hіѕ networth fіgurеѕ tо іnсrеаѕе.

Early Life

In the year 1960, Ortega decided to give his creative self a try. By this time he was working in a local clothing shop as the store manager. From his home, Ortega began designing different coats, lingerie, and dressing gowns. Later in the year of 1963, Ortega started his first factory. After running this company for two years, he opened Confecciones Goa. It is a textile manufacturing and marketing company. However, the big break for Ortega came in the year 1975. It is the year when he founded Zara. This retail store distributed and distributed fashion items for a reasonable price. His ex-wife Rosalia Mera was the founding partner of the brand. Zara is the most successful brand of Spanish company Grupo Inditex. Amancio Ortega launched the first retail store in 1975 in La Coruna, a small port in Spain. Zara became the world’s largest fashion retailer by 2008 end. By this time it had stores in over 70 countries, outperforming its rivals like Gap of the USA and Sweden-based H&M (Hennes & Maurits).

Road to Success

Zara’s unrelenting focus on the customer is at the core of the brand’s success and the heights it has achieved today. Another secret of Zara’s success is that the brand trains and empowers its store employees and managers to be particularly sensitive to customer needs and wants, and how customers enact them on the shop floors. Zara empowers its sales associates and store managers to be at the forefront of customer research – they intently listen and note down customer comments, ideas for cuts, fabrics, or a new line, and keenly observe new styles that its customers are wearing that have the potential to be converted into unique Zara styles. In comparison, traditional daily sales reports can hardly provide such a dynamic updated picture of the market. The Zara empire is built on two basic rules: “to give customers what they want”, and “get it to them faster than anyone else”. Zara’s highly responsive, vertically integrated supply chain enables the export of garments 24 hours, 365 days of the year, resulting in the shipping of new products to stores twice a week. After products are designed, they take around 10 to 15 days to reach the stores. All clothing items are processed through the distribution centre in Spain, where new items are inspected, sorted, tagged, and loaded into trucks. In most cases, clothing items are delivered to stores within 48 hours. This vertical integration allows Zara to retain control over areas like dyeing and processing and have fabric-processing capacity available on-demand to provide the correct fabrics for new styles according to customer preferences. It also eliminates the need for warehouses and helps reduce the impact of demand fluctuations. Zara produces over 450 million items and launches around 12,000 new designs annually, so the efficiency of the supply chain is critical to ensure that this constant refreshment of store-level collections goes off smoothly and efficiently. Zara has a very entrepreneurial culture and employs lots of young talent who quickly climb through the ranks of the company. Zara promotes approximately two-thirds of its store managers from within and generally experiences low turnover. The brand has no fear in giving responsibility to young people and the culture encourages risk-taking (as long as learning happens) and fast implementation (the mantra of fashion). Top management gives its store managers full liberty and control over their store’s operations and performance with a clear set cost, profit, and growth targets with a fixed and variable compensation scheme. The variable component amounts to up to half of the total compensation – making store-level employees heavily incentive-driven. Besides, once an employee is selected for promotion, his or her store develops a comprehensive training program for that individual with the human resources department, which is followed up by periodic supplemental training – reflecting Zara’s commitment to talent development. The organizational structure is also flat with only a few managerial layers. One of the secrets behind Zara’s global success is the culture and the respect for the fact that no one is a better, authentic trendsetter than the customer himself or herself – and this philosophy needs to be continually reflected in all its business strategies going forward. He founded Inditex in the year of 1985. This company served as a support company for Zara. This company eventually grew with Zara. There is another reason which propelled the growth of Inditex. Ortega decides to launch other retail businesses. This chain of retail group grew up to be the largest retail group in the world. In the year 2013, the net worth of his retail group was $19 billion. Inditex had its initial public offering (IPO) in 2001, on the Bolsa de Madrid. The IPO sold 26 percent of the company to public investors, the company was valued at €9 billion. The same year, the company launched the lingerie and women’s clothing store Oysho. In 2003, Inditex launched the Zara Home brand, which offers bedding, cutlery, glassware, and other home decor accessories. In 2004, with the opening of store number 2,000 in Hong Kong, Inditex had established its presence in 56 countries. In 2005, CEO Jose Maria Castellano stepped down from the position to oversee expansion plans, he was replaced by current CEO Pablo Isla. Inditex launched Uterque in the summer of 2008, the brand specializes in women’s accessories. During the same year, the company opened its 4,000th store in Tokyo after doubling in size within four years. In 2011, Ortega, the founder of the business and majority shareholder, stepped down as deputy chairman and CEO Isla handles day-to-day operations. Later that year, the company opened a store in Australia, a move that would put the company on five continents and in 77 countries. After the 2013 Savar building collapse, Inditex was one of the thirty-eight companies that signed the Accord on Factory and Building Safety in Bangladesh. Apart from fashion brands, Amancio Ortega has also set up a global real estate investment fund, Pontegadea Inversiones, which manages corporate offices across 9 countries including United States (Seattle), Britain (London), France (Paris), Canada, Italy, South Korea. These corporate properties house large companies including Facebook, Amazon, and Apple, and prestigious luxury and retail brands. 40 years have passed since the day Zara was born. The 80-year-old founder has been announced the second richest man in the world. Yet, nothing seemed to have changed the man who rose from the grains and soared high like a falcon. Ortega’s interest expands from fashion to art. It is said that he owns a huge collection of art which includes various paintings of Spanish painters. What makes people awe-stricken is the fact that Ortega being a fashion merchant himself, has no interest in fashion. He hardly cares what he wears to work. Also, he shows no loyalty towards the brand which sets him on the list of the richest men. Ortega is known to be quite humble by nature and is known to be quite approachable to his employees. Аmаnсіо Оrtеgа hаѕ brоkеn аll ѕtеrеоtуреѕ оf bеіng а buѕіnеѕѕ Tycoon. Ніѕ lоw рrоfіlе ѕtаtuѕ іѕ аn іnѕріrаtіоn fоr tоdау’ѕ уоungѕtеrѕ. Не іѕ fаr аwау frоm wоrldlу ѕhоw-оff, lіvеѕ а genuine lіfе wіth, wife his children lіkе аn оrdіnаrу mаn, аnd thіѕ іѕ whаt mаkеѕ hіm dіffеrеnt frоm оthеrѕ. Не іѕ аn ехtrаоrdіnаrу gоldеn асhіеvеr, whо rеmаіnеd соnѕіѕtеnt tоwаrdѕ hіѕ wоrk ѕіnсе thе vеrу bеgіnnіng. Аlthоugh hе іѕ dеdісаtеd tоwаrdѕ hіѕ оwn wоrk аnd lіfе, hе nеvеr mіѕѕеѕ а сhаnсе tо hеlр ѕоmеоnе іn nееd. Не even donated €20 mіllіоn tо а Rоmаn Саthоlіс rеlіеf оrgаnіzаtіоn rесеntlу. Ortega, despite his high-profile success and huge income, is a humble man. He believes in keeping a low profile. In fact, before 1999, no photograph of him had ever been published anywhere. Zara’s founder is sharing his wealth by donating $361 million worth of state-of-the-art cancer-fighting equipment to Spanish hospitals, but his goodwill is being slammed by those who believe the retail chain’s parent company is guilty of tax avoidance. The donation made by Amancio Ortega, the store’s founder and the richest man in Europe, has been sharply criticized since the Green Party accused Zara’s parent company, Inditex, of employing “aggressive” tax strategies and techniques to avoid paying €585 million ($653 million) in taxes from 2011 to 2014 – a claim that Inditex denies. He is the second-wealthiest person in Europe after Bernard Arnault. As 2020, of 2020, Amancio Ortega’s net worth is estimated to be roughly 60.3 billion dollars, making him one of the richest entrepreneurs in the world. Companies under him are : Inditex is the world’s largest fashion group with more than 174,000 employees operating more than 7,400 stores in 202 markets worldwide including 49 online markets. The revenues of Inditex were USD 23.4 billion in 2019.

Challenges

There was a fascinating story around how Zara co-creates its products leveraging its customers’ input. In 2015, a lady named Miko walked into a Zara store in Tokyo and asked the store assistant for a pink scarf, but the store did not have any pink scarves. The same happened almost simultaneously for Michelle in Toronto, Elaine in San Francisco, and Giselle in Frankfurt, who all walked into Zara stores and asked for pink scarves. They all left the stores without any scarves – an experience many other Zara fans encountered globally in different Zara stores over the next few days. 7 days later, more than 2,000 Zara stores globally started selling pink scarves. 500,000 pink scarves were dispatched – to be exact. They sold out in 3 days. How did such lightning-fast stocking of pink scarves happen?. Customer insights are the holy grail of modern business, and the more companies know about their customers, the better they can innovate and compete.

Failures

Ortega has a net worth of $58.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the bulk of which comes from his majority stake in Inditex. His fortune has slumped more than a fifth this year in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which has forced Inditex to close stores. The company’s shares fell 22% this year through Monday. Aside from real estate, Ortega has also invested in energy and telecommunications, buying a 5% stake in Enagas last year. In 2018, Pontegadea acquired a 9.99% stake in Telefonica SA’s tower unit for 378.8 million euros. Pontegadea said the Covid-19 crisis may affect its income from rents and dividends this year. It expects to receive 646 million euros in dividends from Inditex in 2020.

Achievements

Amancio Ortega of Spain is one of the wealthiest clothing retailers in the world.|A pioneer in fast fashion, he confounded Inditex, known for its Zara fashion chain, with his ex-wife Rosalia Mera in 1975.|Ortega owns about 60% of Madrid-listed Inditex, which has 8 brands, including Massimo Dutti and Pull&Bear, and 7,500 stores around the world.|Ortega typically earns more than $400 million in dividends a year.|Ortega has invested his dividends primarily into real estate in Madrid, Barcelona, London, Chicago, Miami and New York.

Quotes

  • Innovation and commitment towards our customers define our corporate culture
  • I'll keep working until the end
  • We cannot limit ourselves to continuing on the path we have already opened…