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Amancio Ortega

Spanish founder of Inditex and fast-fashion pioneer.

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Amancio Ortega Gaona, born 28 March 1936, is a Spanish billionaire businessman and the founder of Inditex, best known for its Zara and Bershka chains.[1] By 2026, Ortega's net worth was US$147 billion, placing him as Europe's second-richest person, and he is recognized as an innovator in the fast-fashion sector.[1]

Key facts and history

Ortega was the youngest of four children, born in Busdongo de Arbas, León, Spain, and spent his childhood in Tolosa, Gipuzkoa.[2] In 2009, Zara was part of the Inditex group, of which Ortega owned 59.29%, with over 6,000 stores and more than 92,000 employees.[3] Because his father worked on the railways, Ortega quit school when he was 14 and relocated to A Coruña.[4] He subsequently became an assistant at Gala, a local shirtmaker, where he acquired manual clothing-making skills.[4]

Confecciones Goa, a company he started in 1963, sold quilted bathrobes.[5] Together with Rosalía Mera, his wife, Ortega launched the initial Zara outlet in 1975.[6] Only three journalists have ever been given interviews by him.[7] In 2011, he declared his upcoming departure from Inditex and proposed that Pablo Isla succeed him.[8]

Caritas Internationalis received roughly €20 million from Ortega in 2012.[8]

What the cited sources add

A 2017 ELMUNDO article reported that Ortega’s foundation donated 320 million euros to public hospitals across all autonomous communities for cancer detection and treatment equipment.[9] The same article noted that this program began in 2015 with a 17 million euro donation to Galicia’s public health system.[9] The 320 million euro budget was allocated to purchase over 290 state-of-the-art devices, including advanced linear accelerators and digital mammography systems.[9] The same source noted that Ortega became the second-largest shareholder of Red Eléctrica, behind only the state (through SEPI).[10]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Amancio Ortega" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Amancio Ortega", Forbes; "Forbes: Amancio Ortega", Forbws; Warren, "Meet Amancio Ortega, the fiercely private Zara founder who's worth $62 billion and owns properties in Madrid, London, and New York City", Business Insider (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Amancio Ortega" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Martínez, "Zara: Visión y estrategia de Amancio Ortega", Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial España, August 2023, p. 10 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Amancio Ortega" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Inditex Group Annual Report 2009", Inditex Group (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Amancio Ortega" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Walt, "Meet Amancio Ortega: The third-richest man in the world", Cable News Network, 8 January 2013 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Amancio Ortega" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Alonso, "Hoy cumple 86 años Amancio Ortega, el hombre que juró que no volvería a pasar hambre", El Independiente, 2022-03-28 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Amancio Ortega" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Dennys, "Zara founder Rosalia Mera's fast-fashion legacy to the British high street", The Daily Telegraph, 16 August 2013 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Amancio Ortega" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Lutz, "Meet The Secretive Spanish Billionaire Whose Net Worth Rose The Most In 2012", Business Insider (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Amancio Ortega" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Amancio Ortega Foundation donates 20 million euros to charity", Thinkspain.com, 25 October 2012 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  9. "Amancio Ortega dona 320 millones de euros a la sanidad pública para combatir el cáncer", ELMUNDO, 2017-03-29. facts only, no text reused. elmundo.es
  10. "=Amancio Ortega compra un 12% del operador de la red eléctrica portuguesa (REN) y se convierte en su segundo mayor accionista", elmundo.es, 2021-07-30. facts only, no text reused. elmundo.es

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Amancio Ortega (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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