Today, his retail company Inditex SA — which owns Zara, as well as Massimo Dutti and Pull&Bear — has over 6,600 outposts around the world. He goes to the same coffee shop every day and eats lunch with his employees in the company cafeteria. In 2015, Zara opened its 7,000th store in Hawaii and also set up a profit-sharing scheme that would go on to pay out €37.4 million to 78,000 employees across the company’s stores, factories, brands and subsidiaries across 50 different countries. By the end of 2010, Ortega had diversified his investments, owning premium office and retail properties in major cities in Spain, parts of Europe, and the United States. Three of his acquisitions were the Epic Residences & Hotel in Miami, Florida; the Torre Picasso skyscraper in Madrid; and a nine-story building also in Madrid, which he bought for €413 million. Ortega also acquired a 21.6% stake owner of zara brand in La Coruna, an equestrian centre in Larin, Spain.

He’s the largest shareholder of the Inditex group and after he retired from his post as Chairman of the company, Pablo Isla took his place as the CEO and Chairman. He is fiercely protective of his personal life and makes  sure it is kept such. When he is not working and driving Zara towards success, Ortega loves horseback riding. He has his own equestrian center in Finisterre, which is located in Galicia, Spain. Jeff Bezos sold about $1 billion in company stock as part of a planned divestiture, a month after he said he spends about that amount annually on his space exploration company Blue Origin. The line has been extremely successful, with sales in Spain alone amounting to €493 million in 2020.

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All the Zara stores respond practically as in real-time basis for all of the customers’ preferences. This is such a great service done and implemented by Zara for great success in the high change in the fashion industry in the future. Inditex’s establishment marked the beginning of the “instant fashion” strategy, which prioritized quick turnaround times for fashion production and distribution. In essence, the company laid the foundations for a distribution system capable of reducing lead times and increasing responsiveness to new fashion trends.

The story of Ortega’s rise to fortune is truly inspirational for entrepreneurs. Amancio Ortega has shown hard work and a little business acumen is a sure-shot way to success. But this won’t happen until fashion businesses treat them as their own employees, argues Edward Hertzman.

At their wedding, Marta wore an embroidered dress by designer Narciso Rodríguez. Their seafood-inspired menu was prepared by top chefs Marcelo Tejedor and Nacho Manzano. Marta studied at the European School of Business in London and when she graduated she started working as a sales assistant in a Chelsea branch of the brand. He uses an unremarkable car to take the short drive to the vast Inditex complex in nearby Arteixo. He worked for a tailor as a boy and set out on his own in his 20s, selling bathrobes and lingerie with his late first wife Rosalia Mera, according to CNBC.

But despite his impressive net worth, many people have never heard of him. In 2012, Bloomberg noted that he had only granted interviews to three journalists. He dresses modestly, usually wearing a simple uniform of a blue blazer, white shirt, and grey trousers — none of which are Zara products.

If a style or color was selling well, new colors or patterns were added to existing designs. Over the next 10 years, Ortega took the business through a rapid series of expansion milestones. In 1977, company headquarters and Zara’s first garment factories were established on the outskirts of La Coruña. By 1983, there were nine Zara stores in shopping districts across cities in Spain; in 1984, the company’s first logistics center opened in that same central hub outside La Coruña. In 1985, as Ortega was preparing to launch the Zara brand internationally, Inditex was officially incorporated as the parent company for Zara. The first Zara store outside of Spain opened in Portugal in 1988, followed quickly by New York (1989); Paris (1990); Mexico City (1992); Athens (1993); Belgium and Sweden (1994); Malta (1995); Cypriot (1996); Norway and Israel (1997).

• Sometimes he sits down with the Zara Woman design team and they kick around ideas for the coming weeks and months – the new layout for a store, a new design for the upcoming winter collection.
• Zara is also known to be one of the few clothing brands that produces 100 % toxic-free clothing, but not until after the uproar that was caused on how it was using the cancer-inducing azo dyes in its clothing.
• „One day he and his mother went to pick up some groceries,“ according to Covadonga O’Shea, author of a biography of the Zara founder.
• Before, coming under Inditex’s command Tempe had already gained major growth in the market and brought innovative products in the market.

Before, coming under Inditex’s command Tempe had already gained major growth in the market and brought innovative products in the market. The first store opened by the couple featured the latest product with relatively low price but, with higher-end clothing fashions. The store soon saw a good amount of profit and the owners thought of expanding their profitable business throughout the country. The first store was opened by the couple way back in 1975 in central A Coruna, Galicia, Spain. Initially, the name of the retailer apparel was Zorba given by Amancio Ortega which was after the classic movie ‘Zorba the Greek’. Unfortunately, he soon found out that there was a bar with the same name so he changed the letter to ‘Zara’.

Internationally, he also owns properties in five other major European capitals (Paris, Berlin, Rome, Lisbon and London). In addition to state-of-the-art design and production, the computerized inventory systems that linked stores to factories prevented unnecessary capital expenditure by removing the need for large warehouse inventories. For example, once each Zara store was linked to the factory system, not only was all sales information automatically sent back to headquarters in Spain, but the on-site staff also constantly monitored the stock.

• Ortega is very reclusive and keeps a very low profile.28 Until 1999, no photograph of Ortega had ever been published.
• Zara slowly expanded its empire from the town in Spain to the rest of the country and then later to Portugal.
• He has three childern,Sandra Ortega Mera, Marcos Ortega Mera and Marta Ortega Pérez.
• Zara attracted sales because it sold designer fashions at reasonable prices.
• Today, the company includes brands like Bershka, Massimo Dutti, Pull&Bear and Stradivarius.

Who Owns Zara?

It is probably the amalgamation of all these qualities that made Zara, the Spanish clothing brand become the go-to fashion brand for all. New arrivals in the Zara stores were not limited to the traditional fashion seasons of fall, winter, spring, and summer; rather, they were received year-round, on a weekly basis. The fast-fashion concept was so popular with customers that Zara, with more than 1,000 outlets worldwide, spent relatively little on advertising. When Inditex went public in 2001, Ortega established a family office, Pontegadea Inversiones, as the vehicle through which the Ortega family operates as majority shareholders of Inditex. The family office, in turn, channels most investments through Ortega’s real estate investment arm, Pontegadea Inmobiliaria, one of the biggest property companies in Spain. Fast fashion—the massively successful business model that Ortega had first developed in the 1960s—was off and running.

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He intended to call the store Zorba after the 1964 film Zorba the Greek, but with a bar of the same name nearby, the chose Zara instead. Ortega has also invested in the Epic Residences and Hotel, a luxurious, 54-story skyscraper in Miami. He’s also reportedly bought property in London, Chicago, Barcelona and more, according to Forbes. He was planning to name it Zorba after the film „Zorba the Greek,“ but there was already a local bar with the same name. Because he’d already bought molds of the letters Z-O-R-B-A, he made do with what he had and ended up with the name Zara, Vogue India reported. „He’s not one of the rich people who looks at you from the height of his success.“

Amancio Ortega

Overall, Zara has a fast-moving and finely tuned supply chain because the top management of Zara keeps constant attention to keep the supply chain run smoothly for the customers. The managers and other heads in the supply chain department are always researching and watching the customer demands and making adjustments to the manufacturing unit and the supply chain operations. This is because the Inditex clothing company soon after its foundation incorporated Zara and many other clothing brands in the market.

Until recently, Inditex, the world’s biggest fast fashion brand, also relied heavily on the scheme to back up claims it was sourcing more sustainable cotton. But in its latest annual report, published earlier this month, the company dropped cotton certified under the programme from its list of materials considered lower impact. Though the company is still using Better Cotton, it substantially rebalanced its sourcing last year to prioritise organic and recycled raw materials. Though other large fashion companies have not indicated they are making similar switches, it’s a blow because Inditex is such a major player in the industry.

Globally known for affordable fashion, however in India Zara is considered a high-end brand, as it offers more expensive products compared to local brands. The brand first featured in Spanish stores with a product range that was updated frequently to reflect the company’s business model and ethos. Zara is now one of the largest fashion retailers in the world with over 2,000 Zara stores and a further 500 home stores in 96 countries. And it’s not a model that can be easily copied by other brands, which don’t have an established local supply chain, says Simon Bowler, from equity research company, Exane.

He owns The Global Express BD-700, a private jet designed by Bombardier, one of the leading manufacturers of luxury private jets. The plane carries a price tag of €41 million, but he rarely jets off on vacation. Ortega and drives an Audi A8 luxury sedan that is said to be more about comfort than luxury. Zara under the command of Inditex opened up stores in various countries Mexico, Greece, Sweden, Belgium, France, and many more. Moving to the 2000s, Zara opened their first stores in Brazil, Japan, Singapore, Venezuela, Malaysia, Russia, China, Morocco, Estonia, Hungary, and Romania. He wears the same thing to work every day and dines in the company cafeteria.