Rosalia Mera

The company, founded by Rosalia and her former husband, Amancio Ortega, in 1975, started out in the 1960s as a cottage industry in the couple's home at La Coruña, Galicia, where the pair stitched quilted bathrobes and lingerie based on designer brands and sold them at budget prices. They quickly expanded the number of retailers they sold to and by the early 1970s had several hundred employees.

Realising that they could make more money selling direct to customers, they opened their first Zara in La Coruña in 1975 (originally they were going to call it Zorba, but a bar in the city had the same name and as they already had moulds for the letters they opted for Zara). The store proved a runaway success, and they opened more Zara stores throughout Spain. Over the next 30 years the company grew into the world's largest fashion retailer.

The couple owed their success to pioneering the concept of "fast fashion" – in which retailers adapt the latest catwalk or pop culture designs and speed their cheaper versions into stores. Unlike almost any other fashion chain, Zara branches change their stock every two weeks – and keep only a limited number of each garment, so that customers know that if they see something they like they have to snap it up there and then.

Zara was one of the first companies to use computers to analyse customer preferences. When shop assistants notice that a particular colour or style is failing to sell, the information is beamed back to company headquarters in Spain and the factories immediately stop producing it.

The Inditex fashion empire now extends to more than 6,000 stores in 86 countries and eight retail brands, including Massimo Dutti and Pull & Bear. Earlier this year it overtook the telecoms company Telefonica and a host of ailing banks to become Spain's biggest listed company.

Rosalia Mera Goyenechea was born on January 28 1944 in a working–class neighbourhood of La Coruña, and left school aged 11 to work as a sales assistant in a clothing shop. In 1966 she married Amancio Ortega, the son of a railway worker who had also dropped out of school, aged 13, to run errands for a clothing shop.
As their business grew, however, their marriage came under strain. The couple had a daughter, but a son was born mentally handicapped, and in 1983 Ortega fathered another daughter with an Inditex employee. They divorced in 1986.
But Rosalia Mera remained Inditex's second–largest shareholder, with a net worth (this year) reported to be more than $6 billion. She invested in businesses ranging from film, hotels and property to biotechnology and also served as president of the Paideia Foundation, founded by her former husband in 1986, which helps people with disabilities.
Despite her enormous wealth, Rosalia Mera remained a down–to–earth woman who could be seen in La Coruña dancing salsa on Thursday nights, and singing with friends at a local tavern on Fridays.