提高托福閱讀能力，我們一定要在日常生活中有意識地增加英語閱讀量，提升語感和熟練度，這其中比較常用也比較方便地一個方式就是利用各類英文報刊雜志文章進行精讀與泛讀練習。
Amancio Ortega
Behind the mask of Zara
The management style of Europe’s most successful businessman
阿曼西奧·奧爾特加
Zara的面具背后
歐洲最成功商人的管理風格
IT IS a short walk from a tiny shop with peeling yellow paint in downtown La Coru?a, in northern Spain, to a dazzling five-storey store, opened in September by Zara, by far the world’s most successful purveyor of “fast fashion”. In this stroll across three city blocks, the career of Amancio Ortega unfolds: from teenaged apprentice in the corner shop, Gala, a men’s clothing business, to Europe’s richest entrepreneur, the majority owner of one of its best-performing firms.
在西班牙北部拉科魯尼亞(La Coru?a)市中心有一家小店，黃色的墻漆已片片剝落。從這里出發，不用走多遠便到達一幢令人目眩的五層建筑。這是目前世界上最成功的“快時尚”供應商Zara于去年9月開張的商鋪。這段跨越三個街區的路途，濃縮了阿曼西奧·奧爾特加的職業生涯：十幾歲時在街角的男裝店Gala里做學徒，之后成為歐洲最富有的企業家、在該洲業績名列前茅的公司的大股東。
According to one employee of Zara who works with him, “the true story of Amancio Ortega has not been told.” Mr Ortega, the son of an itinerant railway worker, who started at the corner shop aged 13, had a basic upbringing: an ex-colleague says he talks of meals of “only potatoes”. He has lived mainly in Galicia, a relatively poor region with no history in textiles. Yet there, in 1975, he founded Zara—a manufacturer-cum-retailer that, along with its sister brands, has over 7,000 shops globally.
與其共事的一名Zara員工說，“阿曼西奧·奧爾特加的真實故事并不為人所知。”奧爾特加是一個巡線鐵路工人的兒子，13歲就開始在街角小店里工作。他只得到了最基本的養育：一位前同事說，奧爾特加曾提到經常一頓飯里“只有土豆”。那時他多數時間都生活在加利西亞(Galicia)，這個地區相對貧窮，且歷史上并不存在紡織業。然而，就是在那里，他于1975年創立了Zara。這家制造商兼零售商連同其姐妹品牌在全世界已有7000多家門店。
Mr Ortega (pictured) is now 80 but he remains energetic and involved in the business (if uninterested in wearing trendy clothes). He owns nearly 60% of Inditex, the holding company of Zara and the other chains, which is worth some €100bn ($106bn). According to Forbes magazine, in September his total assets, of nearly $80bn including his properties and other holdings, briefly surpassed those of Bill Gates.
奧爾特加(見圖)現年80歲，但仍精力充沛，并積極參與生意上的事務(不過他對時髦的穿著就不感興趣了)。他擁有Zara及其他連鎖品牌的控股公司印地紡(Inditex)將近60%的股份，價值約1000億歐元(1060億美元)。《福布斯》雜志報道說，到去年9月，他的總資產(包括房產及其他持有財產)約為800億美元，略微超過比爾·蓋茨。
The manner in which he rose does not fit the usual template. His lack of formal education has profoundly affected his management style. Those close to him confirm that he does read—novels and newspapers—but he is reportedly ill-at-ease with writing at length. He has never had his own office, desk or desktop computer, preferring to direct his firm while standing with colleagues in a design room of Zara Woman, the flagship line. One former long-term CEO of Inditex, and Mr Ortega’s business partner for 31 years, José María Castellano, says that his ex-boss’s working method is to discuss things intensely with small groups, delegate paperwork, listen hard to others and prefer oral over written communication.
奧爾特加的崛起之路并不符合慣常的范本。他缺乏正規的教育，這一點深刻地影響了他的管理風格。他身邊的人證實，他的確會閱讀(小說和報紙)，但據說他寫起較長篇幅的東西時就不那么自如了。他一直都沒有自己的辦公室、辦公桌或臺式電腦，他更喜歡和同事們一道，在旗艦系列“Zara女士”的一間設計室里站著管理自己的公司。曾長期擔任印地紡CEO的何塞·瑪利亞·卡斯特利亞諾(José María Castellano)與奧爾特加是長達31年的商業伙伴。他說，他前老板的工作方式是同小組激烈討論事務，委托他人進行文書工作，認真聆聽他人的意見，并且喜歡口頭交流更甚于書面溝通。
This preference for close personal interaction may even have helped him concoct the formula behind Zara’s success. At a time when the fashion industry mostly outsourced production to China and other low-wage countries (as it still does), Mr Ortega decided to keep most manufacturing close to home. Some 55% happens in Spain, Portugal and Morocco—near the firm’s main markets. That in turn allows twice-weekly deliveries of small but up-to-the-minute fashion collections to every store. Inditex’s share price has soared tenfold since its flotation in 2001, outstripping rivals such as Gap and H&M (see chart).
這種對緊密人際互動的偏好甚至可能還幫他調配出了促使Zara成功的配方。當時尚產業的大多數從業者都將生產外包至中國及其他低收入國家之時(現在仍舊是這樣)，奧爾特加卻決定將大部分制造工作都留在離本國較近的地方。這其中有約55%是在西班牙、葡萄牙和摩洛哥，毗鄰公司的主要市場。如此一來，每家店鋪都可以收到每周兩次的供貨。雖然量不大，但卻是最新的服裝系列。自2001年上市以來，印地紡的股價已大漲十倍，超越一眾競爭對手，如Gap和H&M(見圖表)。
His leadership style appears to favour extreme introversion. A video from a surprise 80th birthday party in March shows him tearful and backing off from assembled staff. He almost never speaks in public nor accepts national honours—aside from a “workers’ medal” in 2002. Colleagues say he resented a rare biography of him, from 2008, by a fashion journalist, Covadonga O’Shea. So few photos existed of him pre-flotation that investors who visited awkwardly confused him with other staff. But that low profile means there is room for other top executives to shine. Inditex’s chairman and CEO, Pablo Isla, has run things since 2011, yet Mr Ortega shows up to work every day. In many firms a professional manager might chafe against the presence of a revered founder, but there are no such reports at Inditex.
看上去，他的領導風格偏向于極度的內斂。一則視頻顯示，在去年3月慶祝他80歲生日的驚喜派對中，他眼含熱淚地從聚集在一起的員工身邊退去。他幾乎從未在公開場合發言過，也沒接受過國家榮譽，除了在2002年獲得的“勞動者勛章”。2008年，時尚記者科瓦東高·奧莎(Covadonga O’Shea)十分罕有地為他撰寫了一部傳記，但他的同事們稱，他對這本書很是反感。公司上市前他的照片流傳甚少，竟令來訪的投資者尷尬地將他與其他員工混淆。不過，這樣的低調作風也意味著其他高管就有了大顯身手的機會。印地紡的主席兼CEO帕布羅·伊斯拉(Pablo Isla)自2011年開始管理事務，但奧爾特加仍每天都去上班。在許多公司，職業經理人也許會因一位倍受尊敬的創始人的存在而煩躁不已，但在印地紡并沒有這樣的傳聞。
In one respect at least, Mr Ortega is more typical of European billionaires. Like other rich recluses—such as Ingvar Kamprad, the Swedish founder of the IKEA furniture chain—he goes in for only limited philanthropy. He pays for 500 annual scholarships for Spanish students in America and Canada and gives to Catholic charities and for emergency relief. Larger-scale philanthropy would bring unwanted publicity. Like others in southern Europe, he may also be wary of inviting political attacks, such as when Pablo Iglesias, of the left-leaning Podemos party, insinuated during a lament about inequality that Mr Ortega was a “terrorist”.
不過至少有一個方面令奧爾特加更符合歐洲億萬富翁的典型特質。和其他深居簡出的富翁一樣(例如家具連鎖店宜家的瑞典創始人英瓦爾·坎普拉德[Ingvar Kamprad])，他只參與有限的慈善活動。他每年提供500個獎學金名額，資助西班牙學生赴美國和加拿大學習，并向天主教慈善機構以及緊急救援行動提供資金支持。更大手筆的慈善捐助只會引來不必要的關注。和其他南歐富豪一樣，他似乎也很謹慎，以避免招致政治上的攻擊。左傾的社會民主力量黨(Podemos)領導人帕布洛·伊格萊西亞斯(Pablo Iglesias)某次哀嘆社會不公時，曾影射奧爾特加是個“恐怖分子”。
The managers of his wealth, which grows by some €1bn a year, say they are now scrambling to have slightly less dependence on Inditex, in line with normal investing principles—a difficult task because Mr Ortega only wants property, an investment “he can touch” but which is time-consuming to buy and manage. In December he spent $517m on Florida’s largest office tower, the Southeast Financial Centre in Miami.
奧爾特加的財富每年約增加10億歐元。他的理財經理稱，他們如今正力求略微減少對印地紡的依賴，以遵循一般的投資原則。不過這個任務并不簡單，因為奧爾特加只想要不動產這種他“看得見摸得著”、但購買和管理都很耗時的投資項目。去年12月，他豪擲5.17億美元，購買了佛羅里達最龐大的辦公大樓——位于邁阿密的東南金融中心(Southeast Financial Centre)。
Most of his income is still from Inditex dividends. On December 14th the firm reported results that, once again, met high expectations in financial markets. The numbers will have doubtless gratified the limelight-loathing Mr Ortega, who is said in private to chide others to admire his company, not himself.
奧爾特加的大部分收入依舊來自印地紡的股息。去年12月14日，該公司發布的報告顯示，公司業績再一次達到了金融市場的高預期。據說，不喜歡被關注的奧爾特加曾在私下不無責備地敦促他人去贊賞他的公司而不是他本人。毫無疑問，如今公司取得的數字定會令他感到欣慰。
