Amancio Ortega

Born

1936 · Busdongo de Arbas, León, Spain

Roots

Spanish, from rural León; raised in Galicia

Family

Working class

Railway-worker father, housemaid mother; he has traced his start to the day a grocer refused his mother credit.

Education

Left school at 13

Started with

A delivery job

Ran errands for an A Coruña shirtmaker, learning the trade from the counter.

Affiliations & societies

None documented.

Information only — claims like these are often unverifiable and may be wrong.

The pathway

1. 1949 · age 13
   Errand boy

   Starts at a shirt shop in A Coruña after the family's credit is refused at a grocery.

2. 1963 · age 27
   Confecciones Goa

   Makes quilted bathrobes with his siblings and then-wife Rosalía Mera, who later becomes a billionaire in her own right.

3. 1975 · age 39
   First Zara store

   In A Coruña; the planned name Zorba was already taken.

4. 1985 · age 49
   Inditex

   The holding company built around 'instant fashion' — design to shop floor in about two weeks.

5. 2001 · age 65
   IPO

   He remains famously private — almost no interviews, lunch in the staff canteen.

6. 2015 · age 79
   Briefly world's richest

   Per Forbes, passing Bill Gates on stock moves more than once.