Michele Ferrero

Pietro Ferrero founded the business in a pastry shop in Alba; his son Michele made it international. He opened a factory in Germany in 1956, launched Nutella in 1964 and went on to create Kinder, Tic Tac and Ferrero Rocher, each designed to be sold in many countries with little change. Making locally and controlling quality obsessively let him compete with much larger groups, and he famously avoided the press. The family still owns the company.