Zara's most hidden intricacies: How Amancio Ortega and Rosalía built their empire

Rosalía Mera Goyenechea (A Coruña, 1944) has become the third richest woman in Spain as a businesswoman and a teaching diploma holder. Hardly anyone knows anything about her, except that she was the first wife of the richest man in Spain, Amancio Ortega, the king of the Inditex textile empire. Rosalía lives with utmost discretion, an aspect she has managed very well.

She was born in the El Matadero neighborhood, in the old area of A Coruña, just behind the Orzán cove, a beach located next to Riazor. Her father was an employee of the electric company Unión Fenosa, and the family economy was not very prosperous. "Sometimes I wonder how it's possible that I know so little about my own. My grandfather was a red and my father was a Francoist, because they recruited him at 16... And that atmosphere of terror, that kind of silence, was palpable in my house without knowing why."

Hers was a modest family whose main attraction on weekends was sharing a table and tablecloth with their neighbors. "In the marginal neighborhood of Matadero, in La Coruña, where I was born, there were three or four Asturian families. They were a reference for all of us who lived there because they had a little more culture than us, lived a little better, and seeing how they grouped and supported each other was admirable. Perhaps because they were forced to live in Galicia due to the war, they always kept Asturias in mind, and that was, especially for me, very striking. I didn't have a village because my parents were of Cantabrian and Basque origin, but they did keep Asturias. On Saturdays they would gather to sing, and we with them; and with them, we learned "Asturias, Patria Querida." They are wonderful memories," recounts Rosalía de Mera.

At eleven years old, she left school and started working. Rosalía, who was called "Rosi" as a child, got an apprentice job at the clothing and jersey store "La Maja," located on the Coruña street of San Andrés, and considered the quarry of Zara and the ball of the Inditex Group (Zara, Bershka, Stradivarius, Pull&Bear, Massimo Tutti, Oysho...). There she met Amancio Ortega Gaona, the warehouse manager, a Leonese boy, introverted, polite, simple, humble, respectful, but without a broad conversation or refined culture. Rosi, on the other hand, was a girl with lively eyes, who stood out for her slender figure and joy, which gave her an aura of glamour. She soon won over Amancio Ortega, who since childhood is a person with few friends and not fond of social events. Rosi was the person in charge of trying on the swimsuits that were sold, "because it's a garment that can't be bought without seeing how it fits first," say her then colleagues. "When they became a couple, Amancio asked me to have someone else take care of this task, and it seemed logical to me," says José Luis Quintás, owner at that time of the aforementioned store, which enjoyed great prestige in the city. "La Maja" was a prosperous business in A Coruña that came to have up to three premises open to the public and a warehouse. It sold a lot of merchandise from Catalonia and was run by the Castro Quintás family.

They say that Rosalía's puberty stage was quite monotonous. That before joining Amancio Ortega, Rosalía Mera had an affair with a young Asturian. "My first love was Asturian, and that marks. Asturias has very important emotional connotations for me" (sic). After a short courtship, Rosalía and Amancio got married at five in the afternoon, bullfighting time, in 1966 at the parish of San José. As a wedding gift, her coworkers gave her a gold watch. The marriage had two children, Sandra and Marcos, the latter born with a mental disability. They separated by mutual agreement twenty years later, in 1986. That marked a turning point in the existence of the third richest woman in Spain. "In life, one closes stages and opens others. And I closed that stage and opened others." They say that if she hadn't separated, her life would have been more or less predetermined. All those years of hard work and relationship with her husband had not translated into any personal success or social visibility. Rosalía was a piece of someone else's project, without seeing herself reflected in a shared project. She was a martyr of being who she was: Ortega's wife.

Amancio Ortega was born in Busdongo de Arbas, a small village in the Leonese council of Villamanín. And he did so on March 28, 1936, just four months before the start of the Spanish Civil War. His mother, Josefa Gaona Hernández, was a native of Valoria la Buena (Valladolid) and his father, Amancio Ortega Rodríguez, also Valladolid by birth, was a railway maintenance laborer, which forced the family, given their continuous changes of destination, to go from one place to another without a fixed course. Thus, shortly after the child was born, they moved to Tolosa (Navarra) and then, already in 1943, they settled in La Coruña. There, Amancio grew up as just another Galician and began working in the clothing business. At only 14 years old, he joined as an errand boy in a well-known local jersey shop called "Gala" and later moved, along with his siblings Antonio and Josefa, to the haberdashery "La Maja." The eldest of the Ortega family, Antonio, the best friend and the most loyal partner Amancio has ever had, enjoyed a special predilection from the owners of this establishment among all the employees. His extroverted and gentle character convinced the Castro Quintás couple to make him one of their travelers. He knew how to establish the right contacts in the business world and cultivated social relationships. Meanwhile, Pepita, as Josefa is familiarly known, joined "La Maja" after her siblings, although she never worked in the store, but in the warehouse that the owners had just opened in the Plaza de Santa Catalina. But little by little, the one who prospered in the business was Amancio, who quickly rose from errand boy to clerk, learning there alongside his wife every last secret of the world of clothing and commercial distribution.

Their first home was located in an apartment they acquired in the Monte Alto neighborhood, on Forarey street number 25, which they had acquired after paying 150,000 pesetas, thanks to a loan from a savings bank. Very soon Ortega realized that working for others would never make him rich. He understood that the added value was left along the way and decided to leave "La Maja" and open his own business to manufacture and sell at low prices the cucos and quilted robes. He popularized a wadded garment, for home and warm, to which he gave design and color, with a mix of pink tones and bright blues, which became so fashionable in the 60s and 70s. Rosalía would immediately leave the store to participate in the creation of this new textile business. Together with her sister-in-law Primitiva Renedo Oliveros, Antonio Ortega's wife, they were the first to sew the cucos to keep babies warm and made the famous quilted robes. In those times, not all homes had excellent heating, so the thick robes for staying at home were very useful to the great mass of the population. They were the true architects of success, the ones who embarked on the new business venture.

Meanwhile, Amancio Ortega was juggling to work at "La Maja" and at the same time supervise the work of his wife and sister-in-law in the workshop on San Rosendo street. It was a place of less than a hundred square meters where four sewing machines were piled up, among fabrics and scraps. In less than a year, Amancio Ortega decided to take another step forward on his path to success. He changed the workshop on San Rosendo street for a ground-floor premises at number 61 of Noya street, in the heart of the Coruña neighborhood of Os Mallos. There, in the new business mainly dedicated to lingerie, the staff was also scarce and was mainly made up of his siblings Antonio and Josefa, his mother Josefa Gaona, his sister-in-law Primitiva Renedo Oliveros, and his wife Rosalía de Mera. Later, up to thirty employees began to work in a factory for wholesalers that designed a robe marketed under the brand "Goa," which took its name from the entrepreneur's initials in reverse. For this, in 1963, the company Goa Confecciones was created, the seed of Zara España S.A. However, there came a time when Amancio also left his job in the store and began to sell his quilted robes throughout Spain. His then neighbors say he was a man attached to a suitcase. Rosalía and Amancio had already changed their modest home, moving to live on Paseo de Ronda, door to door with the entire Ortega family. Amancio's brother lived on the seventh floor and the parents on the tenth. And they occupied two apartments on the top floors.

In that period, from 1963 to 1975, the business of robes and nightgowns experienced sustained growth. And as this first business venture was successful, the Ortega couple was encouraged to embark on a much larger project. "We considered that, instead of buying products in Catalonia, maybe the Catalans could buy from us. I don't think there was anything extraordinary," dixit Rosalía de Mera. It was thus, without ceasing to be manufacturers, that they also became distributors and sellers, and the Zara store emerged as a necessity, which opened its first store in A Coruña in May 1975, in the heart of the expansion, on Juan Flórez street, numbers 64-66. There, jerseys were sold for 500 pesetas. Today it is a globally recognized name thanks to the Patent and Trademark Registry that vetoed the name they had initially chosen: Zorba. Already in December 1975, the second Zara store opened on Torreiro street, in the heart of the traditional Coruña city. A privileged location since the Ortegas already knew by then that they had to choose central places to settle. Hence, they have always focused on the appeal of shop windows as the prospects for their success. One of their characteristics, as a company, is that they have never resorted to advertising. And even well into success, they were never famous or known. "Fame kills projects. Fame takes projects out of the realm of the intimate. Being able to work without expectations from others allows the subject to be much calmer and more relaxed. This way, failures can be assumed as part of the project, something that certainly is not allowed when there are too many expectations. And what is beyond doubt is that there is no possibility of developing without making mistakes," points out Rosalía.

Their success, under anonymity, is growing, and their bank accounts are fattening. In 1979 there were already six Zara stores in A Coruña, Vigo, Lugo, and Ourense. The expansion process was increasing. And in June 1985, they decided to take another leap by creating Inditex (Industria de Diseño Textil SA), the group's head company, to bring together the different commercial activities derived from the fashion distribution business. After the strong growth process in Spain in the eighties, the group acquired cruising speed, and three years after its creation, the Ortegas opened their first store outside Spain, in Porto (Portugal), thus starting a journey whose success is a case study worldwide. The Ortega empire encompasses, among others, five important fashion chains: three of their own creation, Zara, Pull & Bear, and Bershka, and two acquired from Spanish companies, Massimo Dutti (1985), and Stradivarius, (1999). It also shelters other companies unrelated to clothing, such as financial, distribution, insurance, real estate, and even real estate development companies. For Luisa Kroll, director of the Forbes report that ranks the world's richest people, "Amancio Ortega represents one of the most impressive stories. He has carried out a wonderful manufacturing and distribution policy, which makes new products available for sale within three weeks of their completion." Today, the entire operation is moved from the Sabón industrial estate (A Coruña), where Inditex has its headquarters, on an area equivalent to 47 soccer fields, not counting the 30,000 square meters of new intelligent buildings, whose construction has cost about ten million euros.

But while the Ortega business was going at a good pace, their marriage, in contrast, was sinking at the same speed. The birth on May 1, 1971, of the couple's second child, Marcos, with a mental disability (cerebral palsy), distanced the marriage a lot. This birth and its added problems caused Rosalía to move away from work and the family business. "Those years were the most difficult, the most complex, the ones with the greatest effort. But from there, and as a result of the birth of my children, I left everything. Then I realized that although I was only 28 years old, I was already very old, I had been working for more than half of my life. And things at Zara were going well, and I said to myself: "Well, I don't need to work anymore!" (sic). Rosalía devoted herself exclusively to the care of her son Marcos, while her husband dedicated himself body and soul to forging his empire. These were years of pure dedication to the business project on Amancio's part. They say that working from dawn to dusk and even suffering a serious setback when trying to emulate the formula of the department stores where everything was sold, which forced him to start over from scratch. However, Rosalía Mera no longer cared about that. She radically changed the course of her life and resumed the studies she had abandoned in primary school. She began to study vocational training in the health branch. And very soon, she switched to teaching.

The rise of her husband's business empire did not affect her at all, quite the opposite, and already in 1986, their marital separation occurred. "Anyone who says that a breakup doesn't leave a mark is lying," states the Galician businesswoman emphatically. Since that year, she has been in charge of and presides over the Paideia Foundation, her vital axis, created to fight for the reintegration of disabled and mentally handicapped people. The Foundation, headquartered at number 17 of the central Maria Pita square, in A Coruña, annually awards a prize with the name of the couple's son, Marcos Ortega Mera. It was a nod to the apple of her eye, the youngest of her two children. At the same time, she also conducts research activities in the field of education and social services, in addition to promoting the social economy or the creation of companies. As she has publicly confessed, there is a turning point Paideia in her, and the reason for this project's existence is attributed to a vital need that was inside her body from a very young age and that emerged in contact with her son's illness. They say that a moral and ethical order pushes and sustains this project, which had the Inditex group as the initial support of the Foundation, both in terms of personnel and technical and economic matters. Thus, in September 1998, the Zara company signed a collaboration agreement with the Foundation by which it committed to contribute an amount of 300,000 euros annually, for an initial period of five years. Only a year after closing this agreement, Rosalía created the business group Trébore, an initiative of the Paideia Foundation created as an alternative for the training and employment of people at risk of social exclusion. Thus, Ortega's ex-wife appears as the sole administrator of Trebore Transporte SL (car rental); Talleres Trebore SL (services provided to companies ncop), Trebore Planta Joven SL (trade intermediaries), Talleres Trebore Jardinería Sl (agricultural, livestock, forestry, and fishing services)... Some of these companies have their registered office in the Coruña town of Padrón, on Esclavitude street.

Rosalía de Mera is also especially involved in the initiatives of the NGO "Equus Zebra" with branches in Senegal, "for having lived emigration within my family" (sic). It was from 2001 when Rosalía's Foundation changed its name and became Padeia Galiza, no longer depending on Inditex. This fact also coincided in time with Amancio Ortega creating his own foundation that bears his name and was finally located in Arteixo, where the heart of his textile group is.

The other daughter of the marriage, Sandra Ortega Mera, who studied at a public institute, although in her childhood she went through the nuns' school Las Esclavas de A Coruña, is very linked to her mother and doesn't work with her father in the textile company. She is a psychologist and is currently the vice president of the Paideia Foundation, to which she says she dedicates many hours. She is married to Pablo Gómez, who is an employee of Inditex, a very beloved boy in the house where he works as a commercial. Together they have three children and have already given Amancio his first granddaughter. A few years ago, Sandra sold all her shares in Inditex (1.99%), just as her mother did, for which she received the amount of 30,330 million pesetas. Both Sandra and Rosalía move practically all of their income through variable capital investment companies (sicav), which in a short time have become the favorite investment vehicle of the powerful, a new way to evade the Treasury. These companies, in addition to a high average profitability, offer their participants great advantages since, unlike funds, they allow their holders to design and modify their investment policy as many times as they wish. In addition, they enjoy privileged treatment in terms of tax payment, since only 1% of taxes are paid on profits compared to the general 35%. And they allow capital gains not to surface to be taxed unless shares of the same are sold. The creation of this type of company makes sense for assets exceeding 30 million euros, which invest, sometimes thanks to privileged information, in a good basket of securities and funds. Therefore, Sicavs constitute another link in the chain that configures the great fortunes creating authentic networks of essential companies.

Currently, Amancio Ortega's eldest daughter appears as the president of the investment company Quembre de Inversiones Simcavf S.A. and as the administrator of Breixo Inversiones Sicav S.A., Soandres de Activos Sicav S.A., Mateus Inv Sicav S.A., all of them based in Madrid. She also appears as the administrator of several of her mother's companies: Rosp Corunna SL, Rosp Corunna Participaciones Industriales SL, Ferrado Inmuebles S.L

The ex-wife of the founder of Zara and the entire Inditex empire lives and works in A Coruña. Those who know Rosalía say that her life has changed more in form than in substance. That she is passionate about psychoanalysis, gatherings, and literature. That she has surrounded herself with Galician intellectuality. That she prefers to be backed by philosophy professors rather than financial advisors. That she confesses to being left-wing and that she was one of the recognizable heads in the demonstrations called by the "Nunca Mais" platform to protest the Prestige ship disaster. They claim that the first black flags with the blue stripe in support of the platform were hung on the balconies of the Paideia Foundation headquarters, right in front of the Coruña city hall. That she is still a fighter. "I think I'm less and less rebellious, maybe because I'm no longer young. Rebellion is a characteristic of youth that still doesn't know what its war is. I no longer have the desire or time to be rebellious, but that doesn't mean I don't know where I should go. I always have very clear where I come from."

They say she is opposed to appearing in the media, but that she occasionally makes some concessions "they serve me to spread the values of the Foundation and I take advantage of my position," dixit. That she is not afraid to say what she thinks. "At almost 60 years old and a position like mine, how am I not going to say it. Although you shouldn't always say what you think. The truth must be said to benefit something or someone. Saying truths permanently, especially in the case of women, who have a very developed analytical capacity, can become pedantic and even pretentious" (sic). That she is a self-confident woman, rational, analytical, critical, with firm convictions, with a forged opinion on the most relevant issues of life. And with values very present in her life, such as effort and honesty.

Although they say she is very reserved. That she sometimes shows episodes of verbal incontinence. That she is wary of feeling used and that when deciding, she doesn't neglect the opinion of her friends. That she doesn't have many rich people's tics. That she travels in economy class. That she likes to move by taxi. That she usually reads a lot. That what she likes most is women's literature. Although in her hardest moments in life, she took refuge in Freud and Lacan. That she browses the press daily, especially economic newspapers. That she likes to watch television, particularly transgressive programs, "even if they are entertainment." That she regrets not being taught the Galician language in school. That she is a declared feminist. "Women have innate qualities to lead people, make decisions, not be afraid of failure, be flexible to adapt to changes, and do several things at once. Women know how to manage. Running a family is like managing a company. But even today, women have to prove their worth twice, and men still hold supremacy in important positions." Her friends say that when she went to Oviedo in December 2006 to receive the award for singular businesswoman awarded by the female collective Asem, she publicly congratulated herself on the awareness campaign that postulates that "males don't iron, but men do." For her, "if we are not someone's woman, we are rare... because deep down, inequality with men persists."

They claim that her life is quite monotonous. That she enjoys going to the Os Belés tavern, in the working-class neighborhood of Montelo. There, she goes with lifelong friends and listens until the early hours of the morning to veteran singers who gather at this meeting point. That she likes to go shopping at the San Agustín market and the Lugo market. That she always wants to know market prices. That she likes to dress with a "hippie" and casual touch. That one of her favorite designers is Custo Dalmau. That she usually wears her hair short. That for her, luck doesn't exist. That she often thinks about death ("I think about death not as something bad or good, but as a fact that happens"). That for her, time is the only good that can't be bought. And that "you can have a lot of money and very little of a lot of other things; the concept is that abundance weakens the ability to think, relationships, and the potential of what one can have."

Rosalía controls practically all of the share capital of the company Rosp Corunna Participaciones Empresariales SL, her family office, with which she once entered the board of directors of Inditex and where she was until June 2004. This company today owns 6.99% of the capital of the textile group she formed. "It's true that I was in the genesis. And in every project, the beginning is always the most difficult. But Zara's trajectory today transcends people, whether Amancio Ortega or myself. Zara is the fruit of effort, tenacity, and also opportunity. Sometimes life gives us opportunities, and the entrepreneur is the one who knows how to see them. And then there's the luck factor, which is also important. But I insist that today Zara already transcends us." Rosalía Mera received, as a result of Inditex's stock market debut, 92,709 million pesetas for the sale of part of her Inditex share package (37,904,348 shares), although she kept that 6.99% that allows her to still be the second-largest shareholder of the group. The third main shareholder of this textile empire is Chase Nominees, an investment fund managed by the American bank The Chase Manhattan Bank, which in January 2003 bought 5.974% of Inditex's shares on the market for a value of 811.773 million euros at the time. The fourth is another American entity, State Street Bank and Trust, one of the largest custodial and deposit banks in the world, which managed to acquire 5% in the spring of 2006.

Rosalía Mera's investment company ended the year 2006 with capital gains of 36.8 million euros and a total equity of 327 million euros. Of these, 19.5 million are invested in Spanish public debt. Rosp Corunna Participaciones Industriales SL is also located in the Coruña square of Maria Pita and was constituted on May 29, 2001, with a capital of around 1,500 million euros. Through it, she bought 5% of the capital of Riofisa, the developer of commercial and business parks controlled at the time by the builder Mario Losantos, and in whose shareholding Esther Koplowitz also appeared. However, her situation changed in this real estate company at the beginning of 2007, as the Inmocaral group, which controls and is chaired by Luis Portillo, the second-largest shareholder of the construction company FCC after taking 15% of its capital, agreed to launch a takeover bid for 100% of Riofisa after agreeing to buy with its main shareholder: the Losantos family. In turn, Rosalía Mera also appears as the administrator of the real estate rental company Rosp Corunna SL, created in May 2000 in A Coruña with a capital of 907 million euros.

But the company in charge of managing and promoting the main real estate investments of the third richest woman in Spain is Ferrado Inmuebles SL. Her properties are spread across half of Spain's geography. One of her main properties, for which she paid four million euros, is located on Jorge Juan street, in the heart of the Madrid neighborhood of Salamanca, and was leased in 2004 to one of the leading English fashion firms, the multinational Karen Millen. Today she still keeps joint properties with her ex-husband. This is the case of Pazo El Drozo, in Anceis (Cambre), a typical Galician construction built on an area of more than 42,000 square meters, which is one of the residences currently used by Amancio Ortega.

Apart from these companies, Rosalía Mera keeps other privileged channels for her investments, such as variable capital investment companies. Among them, Breixo Inversiones Sicav stands out, with an initial share capital of 240,338,000 euros; Soandres de Activos, Sicav, with a capital of 185,985,012 euros; and Mateus Inv Sicav, with a capital of 15,025,000 euros. These three companies, in which she appears as president, manage Rosalía de Mera's securities portfolio. Their address is in Madrid, on José Ortega y Gasset street number 29.

But she also has stakes in other significant companies such as the Galician pharmaceutical company Zeltia (5%), where a few years ago she embarked on the difficult biotechnology journey with its president and friend, José María Fernández Sousa Faro, brother of the president of Pescanova. Through its subsidiary Pharma Mar, Zeltia develops anticancer drugs such as Yondelis, derived from compounds present in sea algae. As one of the nine members of its board of directors - she is a proprietary director - Rosalía Mera receives a salary of around 150,000 euros a year. For a time, she shared a seat with the former vice president of the European Commission, the popular Loyola de Palacio, who later died precisely due to cancer.

Another company where she participates is the Neonatal Identification and Custody (ICN) company, a company that develops a baby identification system based on fingerprint biometrics. She also makes investments in the audiovisual and film sector, where she controls 26% of Milú Films and 16.3% of the Audiovisual Continental Producer, a production company led by Pancho Casal. Rosalía has transferred everything she learned during her executive stay at Inditex to other sectors, such as the cultivation of ornamental plants, where she conducts in vitro and traditional crops. Among her companies dedicated to "vegetable cultivation and horticultural specialties and nursery products" are Cultigar SL and Viveros Borrazas SL. The latter was created in 2002 with one million euros. But, above all, her star company in the industrial patent market is the Coruña-based Estela Orvi SL, the second firm in Europe and the fourth in the world, created in 2004 and where businessman José Sánchez Quintans also appears as an administrator. "It's almost impossible that if someone has been successful in one sector, they don't take advantage of certain things to apply them in another," they say Rosalía comments daily.

Perhaps because of all this accumulation of investment activities, on December 1, 2006, the Council of Ministers agreed to award the Gold Medal for Merit in Work to businesswoman Rosalía Mera. And it is rare that in a business and financial world dominated by men, a woman obtains this important distinction. Rosalía was also chosen "Galician of the Year" in July 2003. Precisely, one of her latest projects has been the Business Initiatives Center located in the Pocomaco industrial estate, in A Coruña, in which she has invested more than six million euros. It is the so-called Mans Center, which consists of 3,500 square meters of usable space distributed in different premises, among which there are various meeting and conference rooms and a spectacular recording studio, where soundtracks are recorded. The project has received substantial subsidies, both from the Galician administration, through Igape, and from European funds. Rosalía Mera has thus laid the foundations to create a great music industry in Galicia. "It was a pending subject."

The recording studio of the Business Initiatives Mans Center in A Coruña has already become a reference for musicians from all over Spain. It is unique in its format, with the best technology and capacity to capture the compositions of orchestras of up to a hundred members. They say it is on par with the studios in Prague or London, the European capitals par excellence of music. The soundtracks of films such as "Heroína," "El próximo oriente," "El club de los suicidas," "Matahari," "De Profundis," etc., have already been recorded there. In addition, the Paideia Foundation has an agreement with the Legislature de A Coruña, Lugo, and Ourense to facilitate the recordings of the musical groups of these provinces. A new objective is in the mind of the founder of Inditex: music thought of as an industry that takes advantage of the talent of performers from northwestern Spain. "One has to look for a certain niche in the market, and if you think it's a little niche where there's nothing, you have to bet on it. Because the rest is all invented. Music is a great niche of possibilities in Galicia. As an industry. There is talent, but it has to be shown. In Galicia, we don't have so many possibilities to generate industry. This is one. We can say: ladies producers, here you have the magnificent tool, it's in Galicia, you don't have to leave Spain, let's create synergies, hire sound technicians, use the musicians from here." Another company where Rosalía has also invested - she always does it through Rosp Corunna - is Inusual Comunicación Innovadora SL, dedicated to the manufacture and marketing of lighting solutions applied to communication and corporate image supports. This company is also participated by the Media Impact Management Group.

That's why today no one doubts that Rosalía has multiplied her dedication to social issues at the same pace as her investments in the most diverse projects. Her name appears in any conversation among those who have an investment project in Galicia, a community from which she has hardly left. Her person has always been behind certain markedly Galician projects. Thus, in 2004 she entered the aquaculture sector hand in hand with Frigoríficos Fandiño to create Galician Marine Aquaculture (GMA), dedicated to the cultivation of "abalon," the well-known sea ear. Together they built a plant in Muros for the breeding and fattening of this marine gastropod mollusk that feeds on algae and is considered a "delicacy" in Asian markets, especially in Japan. In fact, this country has been the main destination of the company's production. But Ortega's ex-wife has also been linked to the launch of new print media in the area and even in operations related to the control of companies such as the electric company Unión Fenosa. "It's tremendous that money makes people important (...) because money is just a tool" (sic).

Apart from Rosalía, the personal life of her ex-husband, Amancio Ortega, a self-made man, also deserves a separate point. This Coruña worker turned entrepreneur is among the ten richest men in the world with an estimated fortune of 24 billion dollars (18.280 billion euros). A wealth formed despite being a man who did not attend any renowned university nor ever in his youth mingled with the heirs of the great Spanish business fortunes. Today the owner of Inditex occupies the eighth position in the ranking by the amount of his wealth. Only the richest in the world precede him: Warren Buffet, Carlos Slim Helu, Ingvar Kamprad, Lakshmi Mittal, Sheldon Adelson, and Bernard Arnault. The top ten are completed by Li Ka-shing and David Thomson. This is the first time a Spaniard has entered the privileged Top Ten. The next Spaniard in this ranking of the rich, but already far from Ortega, is the owner of the construction company Ferrovial, Rafael del Pino, who occupies the 79th position. The third richest Spaniard, according to this list, would be Enrique Bañuelos (Astroc) in the 95th position, then Esther Koplowitz in the 137th position and her sister Alicia in the 158th... Up to twenty Spaniards, who are the ones whose fortunes today exceed 1 billion dollars (more than 750 million euros) and who, therefore, are part of this select Forbes club made up of 793 men and women. In 2006, only ten Spaniards appeared on the Forbes list, so the number of national tycoons has doubled in 2007.

But if by external qualities one had to judge the richest man in Spain, not even the most prestigious psychologist would manage to unmask his identity. They say his physical appearance is nondescript, with some jowls, medium height, and large receding hairline. That he shuns ostentation, top-level icons, and social position. That he likes to wear Oxford jerseys, gray or brown pants, and Castilian shoes, a uniform he has repeated forever with a disdain for change difficult to assimilate in a prêt-à-porter revolutionary. They say that very rarely does it cross his mind to wear a tie and that he never dresses like a high executive. That he is a discreet man to the utmost, with few friends and many acquaintances. That he usually starts his morning with a breakfast of juice and coffee with milk. That he usually does it at the Financial Club of A Coruña, in the company of his usual friends, who have nicknamed him "penny." That they are always the same, although, from time to time, a new member joins the group. That among them, there are hardly any politicians, and that in his own guild, the textile industry, he doesn't have great friendships either, except for the owners of the Caramelo group. That his great friend is José Caramelo, who curiously was his traveler when in 1963 he took off through the Goa Confecciones firm. That whenever he can, he watches Deportivo matches, on TV or at Riazor, where he goes completely unnoticed. That his great hobbies are horses and cars (an anecdote circulates in the company that he managed to blow up the engine of a Porsche, his favorite brand). That only Inditex keeps him awake at night. That he is capable of getting a worker out of bed, in the middle of sleep, to solve a problem that suddenly occurred to him.

His friends highlight his intuition, creativity, ability to delegate and hold each person responsible for their work, total dedication to the company, democratic ideas, and his fondness for listening. They assure that he collectivizes everything. As for the defects, they attribute to him an excessive ambition that doesn't translate into personal vanity, but rather in the delirium of placing his company at the highest step of the podium at all costs. Also his stubbornness and his bad habit of fostering competitiveness among the team and thus stirring up rivalries and grudges among colleagues. They say he likes to always have his way. That despite surrounding himself with great talents in business management, he always has the last word. That he is a methodical, ambitious person who can't stand losing.

His acquaintances assure that he hardly has any eccentricities. That his habits border on the most disappointing normality, except for traveling in a Falcon 900 plane of his own. That his art collection can't compete with that of Juan Abello or the Koplowitz sisters, nor with Plácido Arango. That he has lunch daily in one of the five Inditex dining rooms with his employees, not all of whom are executives. That on Saturdays, the only day he eats at home, he does so in an office next to the kitchen. That he has a permanent cook at his service. That he likes simple cuisine. That his culinary tastes focus on free-range eggs and fresh vegetables grown in his Pazo de Anceis, located 12 kilometers from A Coruña, in the municipality of Cambre. It is a baroque pazo from the 17th century, one of the most beautiful in Galicia, located on the road that connects Santiago de Compostela with A Coruña at the height of the place of Altamira. On its facade, which still has the appearance of yesteryear, the escutcheons and roeles of the Bermúdez de Castro family stand out, as well as an arm wielding a banner of the Villardefrancos and a castle wrapped in brambles of the Riobóo. Like any self-respecting Galician pazo, Anceis has a chapel and a stone fountain, in Portuguese style, with four chubby faces from whose mouths water spouts come out. They say that if it were up to him, he would move to live in Anceis. In fact, he dreams of doing so one day, but the rest of the family is not very agreeable. That he also owns a chalet in the Pontevedra town of Sanjenjo and an apartment in Marbella. He hardly ever goes to the latter. And that he rejected the possibility of the Amancio Ortega foundation's headquarters, the future depository of his inheritance, being in the Netherlands despite the fact that the decision fiscally favored him.

Long before his divorce from Rosalía, to whom he left, as has been proven, a great fortune, Amancio Ortega began a romantic relationship with Flora Pérez Marcote, initially an Inditex worker. After 19 years of living together, they finally got married in 2002 at the Pazo de Anceis, once the textile group went public (May 2001). The civil ceremony, held almost in privacy, was officiated by the mayor of the town of Cambre, Antonio Varela Saavedra. It seems clear that the patrimonial and organizational clarification of the Inditex empire, in the days before the IPO, was necessary both for Ortega to take his company to the stock market and to separate from his first wife. Ortega met his current wife when she was working as a saleswoman in the Zara store on the Coruña street of Torrerio. Flora was the manager of this store, Amancio's favorite. His relationship with Flora was parallel to the beginning of the decline of his marriage. In a last attempt to save it, Flori, as she is known, was transferred to the Zara store in Vigo, located on Roda street, where she also served as manager. They say that this whole "exile" operation was devised by Amancio's older sister, Josefa, a friend of Rosalía. But not even that fixed the situation. Amancio Ortega finally left the family home and settled alone in a building located in the central Coruña square of Orense, at numbers 7-8. Sometimes, he even slept in a room he had prepared in the factory.

It took a few years, still officially married to Rosalía Mera Goyeneche, for the businessman to start living with Flora Pérez Marcote. Her acquaintances say she is a simple girl, not very given to ostentation. That she is cheerful, lively, and doesn't miss any detail that could harm her. That after her marriage, Flora had no doubt about joining the Inditex board. That she did so on behalf of Gartler, Ortega's patrimonial company that controls 59.29 percent of the textile group.

Amancio and Flora had a daughter in 1983, Marta. The young woman's life has not always been a bed of roses: when she was born, her father was still legally married to Rosalía Mera. Flora and the girl lived alone in Vigo for several years, waiting for Amancio to sort things out with his legitimate wife. That divorce was carried out with exquisite discretion: nothing was known about the terms of the agreement, and the protagonists never gave cause for talk. Everything was solved behind closed doors. Once it was possible, Amancio joined the mother of his third daughter, and the three settled in A Coruña, in a spacious and central apartment, but in no way resembling a palace. There Marta spent her adolescence. Today the house occupied by the Ortega family (an eighth floor joined to another apartment) is part of a real estate complex built by the company Álvarez Conchado, of which Inditex came to own 30% of its capital. This duplex is located in a middle-class neighborhood, known as Zalaeta, in front of the Orzán beach, although in A Coruña it is called Zaraeta due to the large number of executives and managers of the textile company who live in it.

Amancio Ortega's youngest daughter is the apple of the eye of the founder of Zara and president of the textile empire. Marta is 24 years old, has exquisite education, and a passion: horses. Her discipline, perseverance, and concentration have led her to become one of the main promises of equestrianism in Spain. Her passion for horses was passed on to her by her father, who is capable of taking his Falcon 900 plane and traveling to the United Kingdom to buy the best horses for his daughter. In fact, for and for his girl, Amancio Ortega built the spectacular Casas Novas Equestrian Center, on the Corzo estate, a former dairy factory, where he invested nine million euros. It is a 30-hectare estate located in Arteixo (A Coruña), the town where the Ortega empire resides, and where some of the most important international competitions on the equestrian calendar have been held since 2000, the date of its inauguration, attended by the best riders. Many illustrious guests attend the equestrian center of the owner of Inditex. For example, it is common to see Athina Roussel Onassis, daughter of the Greek billionaire Onassis, along with her husband, the Brazilian rider Doda; or also one of the most glamorous amazons of the moment, Princess Haya of Jordan. Or Cayetano Martínez de Irujo, with whom the Zara heiress keeps a very good relationship, as well as with his wife Genoveva Casanova.

They say she is sensible and "very normal." But no one, not even Marta herself, can forget that one day she will inherit a fortune and part of the empire her father has created. They say that Marta lives away from the circuits of the international high society and that she rarely appears in the pages of the glossy magazines. However, when Marta turned 18, her parents organized a party for her at the Playa Club, a well-known Coruña nightclub located near Riazor, to present her to society. A spectacular horse-riding accident on the eve of the event was no obstacle for the party to be canceled. Marta took the setback with good humor and attended the dinner with her cast, two crutches, and a wheelchair. It was the coming-out of Amancio Ortega's youngest daughter, and there attended heirs of illustrious surnames just out of adolescence. Many of them spent the previous days (Christmas 2001-2002) staying at the well-known Hotel Atlántico. Marta did not wear white or blue as the guidelines of the coming-out dictate, she wore a black dress with a large neckline where a large crucifix excelled.

Marta Ortega Pérez began her studies at the Jesuit school of Santa María del Mar (A Coruña). Then she went to Switzerland and later to England to study Business Administration, in the branch of management and administration of companies. She did so at the European Business School in London. They say she is not a great student, that she doesn't get good grades, but that she has a lot of willpower and a work spirit. That she is tenacious. That due to her seriousness, she appears older than she is. That she perfectly masters three languages: English, French, and Italian. That she resembles her mother, Flora, both physically and in her attitude toward life. That with her, she shares executive positions in family companies, for example, as an administrator of Inversiones Menlle, S.L. or as vice president of its subsidiary Caroada S.L. That these two companies, with their own resources exceeding 250 million euros, were created thinking that little by little the girl would learn to manage large investments. Before Inditex's stock market debut in the spring of 2001, Marta herself owned 0.99 percent of the textile group's shares, for which she received 15,067 million pesetas.

Outside of business and classrooms, only her passion for riding her thoroughbred horses (among them, Roxett, Loughtown Atlanta, and Ringwood Mac D), training, and participating in show jumping competitions, her favorite discipline, is known. "I started riding at ten years old, with friends. I had a pony. At twelve, my trainer, the rider Tino Torres, encouraged me to jump. And that's what I like, more than other disciplines like dressage." To participate in them, she has a latest model Mercedes truck, with which she also goes to France, where she has spent summers training. For a long time, Marta attended these places with an English governess who took care of all her needs. The youngest Ortega heiress keeps an active social life and associates with the cream of Spanish society. She is friends with Tamara Falcó, whom she met when Isabel Preysler's daughter worked at Inditex. Perhaps from these friendships, she took a liking to starring in the main pages of the heart of the media, something she has recently forgotten. For a time, she was seen holding hands with her current boyfriend, Gonzalo Testa Ornat, a rider at the Real Club de Polo de Barcelona and son of well-known Catalan businessmen.

Despite her young age, Marta has already been attributed several courtships. One of the most talked-about was with José Bono Rodríguez, son of the former Minister of Defense under the socialist mandate of Rodríguez Zapatero. He was a young gallant of her same age, who also had the fortune that dad put at his entire disposal, at the beginning of 2002, a riding school called "Hípica de Toledo," this time on the outskirts of the imperial city of Toledo, where the omnipresent Bono has his political and family empire. The entire heart press echoed this romance between Marta Ortega and Pepe Bono junior, son of José Bono and Ana Rodríguez Mosquera, and a student of Journalism and Law at the private Madrid center Villanueva, an educational institution linked to Opus Dei. They had known each other for a long time as they shared numerous equestrian competitions. These coincidences were considered by many as the beginning in 2003 of a romantic relationship that later did not bear fruit. Another of Ortega's youngest heiress's boyfriends was José María Arias, son of the president of Banco Pastor and great-nephew of the Countess of Fenosa, Carmela Arias Díaz de Rábago. Another Galician fortune.

It so happens that Ortega reinforced his incursion into the financial world by buying 5% of Banco Pastor, one of the quintessential financial entities on the map of Galicia, through his essential company Ponte Gadea in 2005. The main shareholder of Pastor is the Pedro Barrié de la Maza Foundation, commanded by the Arias Mosquera family, which owns 40.7% of the bank. Amancio and José María Arias Mosquera, president of the Bank, are intimate friends. So much so that it is common to see them sailing together on the decks of one of the boats each owns moored in the port of Sanxenxo. But this was not the first time the textile entrepreneur invested in the financial sector. Inditex already participated in Banco Gallego, of which it became the majority shareholder after buying 20% from Central Hispano. That operation, devised by the former CEO of the textile giant, José María Castellano, aimed to get the company its own bank, as it needed credit lines to finance its expansion. Over time, the participation was reduced to less than 5%, and everything remained a mere note.

The Ortega family, as can be seen, is well connected with the Spanish political, economic, and business power. Therefore, the financial union of this family with Alicia Koplowitz did not surprise anyone. Together they have acted in several important real estate operations. For example, in addition to bidding in mid-2001 for the ownership of the Barcelona hotel Arts and investing in the Portuguese highways Brisa and the construction company Sacyr, they jointly control the company Proherre Internacional, which manages the "Tivoli Forum" hotel complex located in the financial heart of Lisbon, on Avenida Liberdade, comparable to Madrid's Paseo de la Castellana. In the neighboring country, their main partner in these businesses is the Portuguese billionaire Américo Amorim, owner of the Accor hotel chain and a reference shareholder of Banco Popular, of the Valls Taberner brothers. The circle closes again. Alicia Koplowitz and her partner Amancio Ortega also bought a building in the center of Madrid at the beginning of 2002 for which they paid 60 million euros, more than 10,000 million of the old pesetas. The building is located at numbers 7 and 9 of the Madrid street of Recoletos and has more than 8,500 square meters.

Amancio Ortega has bet heavily on the real estate sector through a dozen subsidiaries. Of Ortega's companies in the sector, the most important is Pontegadea Inmobiliaria, with a capital of 36 million euros, where his second wife serves as vice president. Founded in January 2002, this company has invested 654 million in real estate in the last four years. Its main area of international expansion, in addition to Portugal, is Mexico. In total, the Ortegas have invested around 1,000 million in hotels, office buildings, and commercial premises. A few months ago, they also entered the capital of the real estate company Astroc, chaired by the Valencian Enrique Bañuelos, whose fortune already amounts to 7.7 billion euros, which has led him to occupy the 95th position among the richest in the world, according to Forbes magazine. Amancio and his wife initially invested 156 million euros in Astroc. But also at the beginning of 2007, and through Pontegadea, the Ortegas allied with twenty other partners, including a group of recognized Spanish savings banks, to invest one billion in housing promotion in Eastern countries (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and Romania). This new investment firm, called Azora Europa, is chaired by a woman: Concha Osácar, a veteran in the real estate sector. Concha was vice president and CEO of SCH Activos Inmobiliarios. And in 2004, she created the developer Lazora, which today is the first Spanish developer of protected rental housing.

And as is usual in the Ortega family, Flora Pérez has also worked in the company chaired by her husband, specifically in the Bershka firm, in its Design department. Currently, and since her marriage to Ortega, she appears as president of Inversiones Menlle S.A (management of portfolio companies); as vice president of Pontegadea Inversiones S.L. (management of portfolio companies) and Pontegadea Inmobiliaria S.L (rental of real estate); as administrator of Pontegadea Biotecnología S.L. (research and development on natural and technical sciences) and Ponte Gadea S.L. (management of portfolio companies); as attorney of Grilse S.L. (rental of real estate) and Caroada S.L. (management of portfolio companies). She also controls the variable capital investment company Gramela de Inversiones 2004 (sicav), through Inversiones Menlle, in which she and her daughter Marta are the majority shareholders. Precisely, the Menlle company, with a capital of 2.7 million euros, has properties leased to Inditex, in addition to controlling the aforementioned equestrian center. But in addition, Ortega transferred 1.98% of his textile group's capital to his second wife in 2003, which means almost twelve million titles that, if sold, would make her one of the largest shareholders of the company. This is contemplated in the prospectus issued at the time by the CNMV. A textile empire that has extended its tentacles from A Coruña to the entire planet, diversifying its investments.

The founder of Zara and his second wife have been creating a parallel empire with the funds caused by Inditex. With all, his most prized possession remains the 59.294% (369.6 million shares of the company) of the fashion group, whose value already exceeds 25 billion on the stock market. During the 2006 fiscal year, Ortega also had a salary of 600,000 euros as president of Inditex, the same as he set the previous year. But for Ortega, his salary is nothing compared to the 247.6 million euros in dividends that his company gave him during the last year. An empire that has been studied in business schools around the world. Its vertical integration, the use of the store as a marketing tool, the almost absolute absence of advertising, the so-called oil stain strategy to make its way into new markets, the permanent contact between its design centers and stores around the world, the great capacity to respond to market tastes, or the complete logistics apparatus have been the subject of recurring praise. However, Amancio Ortega has always tried to go as unnoticed as possible. It took years to make his photograph known (a copy of his national identity document photograph published by El Mundo in 1995 was his first public image). He doesn't give interviews, doesn't hold press conferences, doesn't attend shareholders' meetings. And despite all the network of companies that make up his businesses, Ortega is only a direct shareholder of three companies: Gartler, Inversiones Menlle, and Pontegadea Inversiones (formerly called Licidia).

In this last company, in which Flora Pérez serves as vice president, the businessman has 97% of the capital and has been the one that has been assuming significant stakes in companies such as NH Hoteles, Banco Pastor, and Aguas de Barcelona (Agbar). In the NH hotel chain, his performance was key to thwarting Hesperia's hostile offer and thus forming a stable core of shareholders to support the management team. Ortega also had the temptation to enter the energy sector when Santander put up for sale the 24% of Unión Fenosa that ACS ended up buying. They say that this failed operation made him finally lose trust in José María Castellano Ríos, who for years was his closest collaborator.

But in addition to the stakes in NH Hoteles, Agbar, and Banco Pastor, Pontegadea Inversiones also owns 100% of Ponte Gadea, the holding company where most of Amancio Ortega's parallel empire subsidiaries are grouped. Ponte Gadea controls two variable capital investment companies (Sicav), fiscally privileged investment vehicles in which the Coruña businessman deposited most of the funds raised with Inditex's stock market debut. One is managed by BBVA, and the other by Santander. Both have horse names, which obey the great equestrian passion of his daughter Marta: Alazán Inversiones 2001 and Keblar de Inversiones. They are two of the largest Sincavs in Spain. Both have a combined capital of over 1.1 billion euros. The portfolio of Alazán and Keblar is basically composed of fixed income securities and, above all, foreign equities. Both have significant stock market stakes, among which Santander, Endesa, Mapfre, Cintra, Ferrovial, Iberdrola, Fadesa, or BBVA stand out.

After the departure of José María Castellano from the textile group, today the right-hand man of the Ortega family in their businesses is the State Attorney Pablo Isla Álvarez de Tejera, who was president of the tobacco company Altadis. The current CEO of Inditex began working in 1992 in the legal services of Banco Popular, an entity of which he was general director after directing State Heritage between 1996 and 1998. Isla, who was born in Madrid on January 22, 1964, has a law degree from the Complutense University of Madrid with the number one of his class. He was assigned to the Legal Service of the Ministry of Transport, Tourism, and Communications between 1989 and 1991 and, after obtaining leave as a civil servant, in 1992 he went to Banco Popular as head of the Legal Department. On May 24, 1996, at just 32 years old, he replaced Juan Antonio Vázquez de Parga at the head of the State Heritage Directorate, a time when public companies such as Tabacalera and Telefónica still depended on this body. Isla left the position on December 15, 1998, and two days later rejoined Banco Popular as general secretary. On June 31, 2000, he left Popular again, after being appointed president of Altadis (the company resulting from the merger of Tabacalera and the French Seita) in replacement of César Alierta, appointed president of Telefónica. On May 14, 2005, he left the presidency of Altadis to assume the position of CEO of the Inditex group and the first vice president of the group, following the resignation of José María Castellano Ríos.

This change in the Inditex empire was due to the fact that it was increasingly evident that the existing organization was not prepared for the growing complexity of operations: its more than 3,200 stores in more than 64 countries, spread across eight main chains, were beginning to create real nightmares in terms of coordination. There was also the problem of succession. For years Ortega trusted his political nephew and general director, Juan Carlos Rodríguez Cebrián, but now he no longer saw him in the group's command post. Juan Carlos Rodríguez Cebrián, married to the only daughter of Antonio Ortega Gaona, María Dolores "Loli," soon revealed himself as the second boss of Inditex. Of the whole family, he was the person with the most influence over Ortega. It was enough to see the company's organizational chart to see who was in charge of the house's kitchen. The chain managers depended on him and reported to him. If something happened somewhere in the empire, anywhere in the world, he was the first to know, and then he communicated it to his political uncle. The Systems, Human Resources departments, and the Expansion and Logistics areas also depended on him. But with the arrival of Pablo Isla and once his uncle communicated the new structure to him, Cebrián felt betrayed and immediately submitted his resignation. Which Amancio accepted. Months later, he began his solo journey and entered, along with his wife, Dolores Ortega Renedo, in the shareholding of the Galician construction company Fadesa, founded by Manuel Jove Capellán, and which at the beginning of 2007 was almost entirely acquired by the builder Fernando Martín, owner of the company Martinsa and former president of the Real Madrid soccer team.

But if there is a great beneficiary of Pablo Isla's arrival at the company, it has been Flora Pérez, who from that moment saw her influence and power increase. Precisely two of her brothers rose positions and are already in the company's governing bodies: one in the Management Committee; and another, in the Business Committee. Pablo Isla included Jorge Pérez Marcote, president since November 2000 of Massimo Tutti, in the first; and Óscar Pérez Marcote, president since 2004 of Bershka, a chain where he previously served as commercial director, in the second.

That's why everything indicates that the true heir of the group will be Flora's daughter, Marta Ortega Pérez, who has already begun the learning process to succeed her father. A learning process from the bottom, first as a saleswoman in one of the Bershka chain stores chaired by her uncle Oscar. And then on a slow and discreet path that will take her through different commercial departments to end up at the head of the offices spread across Europe and Asia. A meticulous preparation to one day be the owner and president of Inditex. About three years ago, Amancio Ortega was diagnosed with a serious illness, from which he fortunately recovered. The owner of Zara wanted to thank the apostle Santiago and they say he walked a thousand kilometers of the Ruta de la Plata, a route integrated into the Camino de Santiago, which connects Seville with Compostela. The Ruta de la Plata was the ancient Roman road that connected the cities of Mérida and Astorga. But later, sections were added that connected Astorga with Gijón and Mérida with Seville, thus being a road that crossed almost the entire western peninsula.

Marta Ortega's arrival will serve to increase the female quota in Inditex, as until now among the nine members of the board there are only two women: Amancio Ortega's second wife (proprietary director) and Irene Miller, a financial expert who acts as an independent. Irene, who has held a seat in the textile company since 2001, has a degree from the University of Toronto and a master's degree in Chemical Sciences from Cornell University. She was vice president of finance at Barnes & Noble and has been on the board of directors of companies such as Body Shop or Benckiser.

The career of Amancio Ortega's youngest daughter has already begun. Since the end of December 2006, she is the vice president of Gartler and Partler 2006, the two firms that control the majority of the textile company's share capital based in Arteixo. Everything was meticulously studied by Ortega's advisors. Marta's appointment was not executive, but the design of the composition of the statutes of both firms guarantees the shareholder shield and property control against any eventuality. This way, the girl entered the virtuous circle in which Zara has lived since its birth, a Ferris wheel that multiplies its size as it turns. Currently, Inditex employs about 30,000 people (not counting the thousands of people who sew in contracted workshops). And

in 2006, it closed its fiscal year with a turnover of 8.196 billion euros. The holding company groups a hundred companies related to clothing that guarantee complete vertical integration. Inditex is the only one among the big ones in the clothing sector that is fully verticalized: Gap and HyM design and sell, but do not manufacture; and Benetton designs and manufactures, but the points of sale are delivered in franchise. Ortega owns almost all of his premises, except in exceptional cases like Germany or Japan, where he operates with joint ventures. It is in the Asia-Pacific region where Inditex is carrying out its great strategic expansion, which doubles the group's global average growth in commercial space. For example, in Mainland China, the first two stores were opened in Shanghai in 2006, in addition to openings in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines... up to a figure that exceeds sixty establishments. But the Ortega empire not only covers the textile fringes but also logistics, marketing, construction, real estate, finance, marketing, and energy generation, car dealerships, shipping companies, or investment fund management.

But alongside the queens of this empire called Zara, there are also three other prominent Coruña women on the list of powerful and rich women in Spain. These are Carmela Arias y Díaz de Rábago (Banco Pastor), Isabel Castelo d'Ortega (Ocaso), and Felipa Jove Santos (Fadesa). These millionaires have achieved their fortunes through family businesses, and all have reinvested part of their profits in social work. Of the three, the most unknown is Isabel Castelo d'Ortega, who has her residence and work in Madrid and only goes to her hometown in summer. The president of Seguros Ocaso owns a farm in San Pedro de Nós (Oleiros). For her part, Felipa Jove held the vice presidency of the real estate company Fadesa, along with her brother Manuel. She lives in A Coruña and has a diploma in Foreign Trade and International Relations. She began her professional life as the head of a university residence in this city. But after the death of her sister María José, the family constituted the María José Jove Foundation, of which Felipa is president. It was through this Foundation that she became linked to the art world, as she owns a large collection of paintings by Galician artists and from the 19th and 20th centuries. She is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Codespa Foundation, an NGO for development cooperation.

The best known of the three, and with more roots, is the Countess of Fenosa, Carmela Arias y Díaz de Rábago, widow of Pedro Barrié de la Maza, who was president of Banco Pastor and Unión Fenosa. Born in February 1920 in La Coruña, she studied Architecture in Barcelona. She was the first woman to preside over a bank in Spain (Pastor), of which she owns 40.7% of its share capital. She then became responsible for the Pedro Barrié de la Maza Foundation, an organization founded more than 30 years ago, and was appointed honorary president of the electric company Fenosa. She has received a large number of awards in recognition of her social work, especially in defense of culture. Among them, the Castelao Medal from the Xunta, the Grand Cross of the Civil Order of Charity, and the Gold Insignia of the Red Cross. In 1996 she was named Galician of the Year, and in 2000 she entered as the first honorary academic in the Royal Galician Academy of Sciences. Baptized by experts as the "Lady of Finance," her fortune in the stock market is around 1.5 billion euros.

In these cases, several questions always arise: Why does someone who is immensely rich continue to work? Is it for vanity or because they seek social prestige? Could it be that deep down what they want is to make more money? To this question, Rosalía de Mera answered journalist Carlos Sánchez: "There is no single answer. There is a bit of everything. A bit of vanity is not bad, as long as it is legitimized. Building an identity through doing, in addition to being a social and civic responsibility, helps to feel good intimately. What makes an entrepreneur continue with their work are the commitments made and the very concept of creation; the entrepreneur loves their creation, and, as happens in families, one never stops tutoring the children."

In our society, almost all texts are written focusing on a single person, perhaps influenced by the mythology of the hero. But it is not so. Zara, without Rosalía, would not be Zara. Amancio Ortega without Flora Pérez would not be him. And Flora without her daughter Marta would not be Flori. Women with character and personality. If Amancio Ortega was brave, his women were no less. They probably have been more.