Inside The Ortega Empire

How the reclusive Zara founder Amancio Ortega quietly became one of the richest men on the planet.

- Justin Rohrlich

As the clothing chain Zara proliferated around the world in the early 1990's, the company’s founder, Amancio Ortega, remained all but invisible. He had never been photographed or interviewed by any major media outlet, and some observers speculated that the mysterious-seeming Ortega might actually be in business with some less-than-savory characters.

“They couldn’t understand how he could do it,” a personal adviser to Ortega told the Washington Post in a 2012 interview. According to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, the rumor made its way to then Catalan president Jordi Pujol, who reportedly summoned Ortega to his office for an explanation. Ortega, who is still extremely publicity-averse—he has never granted a formal interview in his life, according to his communications team, and did not respond to requests for comment on this article— didn’t become the second-richest man in the world, behind only Bill Gates, with any help from the criminal underground. He didn’t have family connections or a fancy university degree. He did it all by himself.

In fact, Ortega’s success can be traced directly back to a fateful afternoon in 1948. As he tells it, he was food shopping with his mother when he heard the grocer say she couldn’t have any more credit. “I was shocked. I was just 12,” he told Covadonga O’Shea, who penned the only authorized biography of the magnate. Describing himself to her as “deeply hurt and humiliated,” Ortega swore to “earn money and help the household.”