Amanico Ortega

Amanico Ortega

Amancio Ortega Gaona is a Spanish fashion executive and founding chairman of the Spanish clothing merchandiser  Inditex(1985). He is the world's 5th richest man with assets of $37.5 billion, Spain's richest man, and Europe's richest man. He currently lives with his second wife in a discreet apartment building in the centre of Coruna.

His Began:

 His father worked on the railroad while his mother helped support the family by working as a maid. At the age of 13, Ortega began working for a shirt maker as a delivery boy in La Coruna, Galicia, the centre of the Iberian textile industry. 

He worked for a variety of stores and tailors and studied how products and costs changed as they travelled from the manufacturer to the consumer. As a result, he became focused on the importance of getting products directly to the consumer without a middle man.

Ortega never attended higher education and continued to work in the textile field into the early 1960s. After becoming manager of a local clothing shop, he discovered that only wealthy individuals could afford to purchase fine clothing and became even more determined to make quality clothes accessible to everyone. As a result, Ortega started making his own products, purchasing cheaper fabric from Barcelona and selling good quality, cheaper products to local stores.

 

In 1963, at the age of 27, Amancio Ortega founded his own company called Confecciones Goa that made and sold fine bathrobes.

Ortega continued to build his company and in 1975 he opened his first retail store called Zara. It was located across the street from one of La Coruna’s most well known department stores and Zara became famous for selling high quality designer products at reasonable prices. As a result of this success, Ortega continued to open stores and was credited with choosing perfect locations for each one.

By 1989, Amancio Ortega Gaona was successfully operating almost one hundred Zara stores in Spain.

With the Zara’s increasing popularity and overwhelming success, Ortega created Inditex in 1985 as the holding company for the Zara brand as well as other smaller chains. Inditex became one of the largest textile companies in the world.

 FAST FASHION INNOVATOR:

Zara is still principally known for the same thing - expensive-looking, trendy clothes at reasonable prices - but it is the unique way Ortega has found to deliver this in a highly competitive market that best reflects his talent. Aware that costs mounted and time was lost as garments moved from designers to factories to stores, he saw the importance of delivering direct to customers.

"We seek to democratize fashion, in contrast to the idea of fashion as privilege."
- Amancio Ortega Gaona

    The business strategy he has developed involves controlling all aspects of the chain, reducing costs and gaining speed and thereby flexibility. His designers get ideas from fashion shows and respond quickly to trends. Keeping manufacture in Spain, rather than following the trend of outsourcing to countries with lower labour costs, speeds up his operation - the clothes are designed and in-store within weeks. Stores are freshly stocked twice a week, avoiding high inventory cost and clearout sales, and encouraging customers to visit often.