Editor’s note: This article was first published in January 2013, when Amancio Ortega was described as the third-richest man in the world. His ranking has changed several times since.
Carlos Slim, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Amancio Ortega have one thing in common: they’re all billionaires. But Amancio Ortega, owner of the Inditex fashion empire, unlike the rest of the Forbes list of the 10 richest people in the world, has not yet given an interview to any media outlet. Even the biographies written about him are unauthorised biographies, based on third-party accounts, street rumours and personal opinions.
A few months ago, a Brazilian newspaper got in touch with us because of the various articles we’ve devoted to him. They asked whether I knew Mr Amancio Ortega personally, and the truth is that I haven’t yet had that pleasure. The journalist asked if I knew anyone who could give her Ortega’s details so she could contact him, but there was no luck. Later the story repeated itself with an Argentine television channel, and once again I couldn’t do anything to help.
This very week, a US television network contacted our colleague Victoria Bernal about other matters, but the subject of Ortega came up in the conversation. The network’s representative acknowledged that people in the United States would love to know about this man, to see him and hear him, because he’s considered a business hero, above all for how much his company has grown given the situation Spain is going through. They even compare him with Steve Jobs, since each of them has been a visionary in his own industry.
The fact is that television networks have managed to interview every single person on the Forbes list. Getting Mr Ortega in front of a camera to tell, in his own words, the secret of his success, and how a man of humble roots from a small town in the north of Spain became, in just a few years, the third-richest man in the world, would be worth a great deal on television, especially to the first network to pull it off. That’s why she admitted to our colleague Victoria that many networks could be very generous financially with whoever manages to land that meeting or interview.
She admitted that after several attempts to contact him, they hadn’t got past the switchboard at Inditex headquarters. They did, however, receive the message: “Amancio Ortega does not give interviews” (which only makes an interview more valuable). Why he doesn’t give interviews is unknown, although we can imagine it might be shyness or simply a dislike of the limelight.
A few months ago we suggested how you could win 55 million by marrying a Chinese woman (with an added difficulty). Today, we’re setting you this challenge.
If a journalist managed to do that interview in person, they’d make the deal of their life selling the tape or the exclusive to one of these networks, not to mention the reputation they’d gain in journalism. I know it isn’t easy, but is anyone brave enough to give it a try?
Further reading
Featured image: Kristin Wolff, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
