The 15 richest people in retail

Retail is an enormous and profitable industry: Global retail sales were projected to top $24 trillion in 2015 and are expected to grow another 3.2% this year, making the magnates who run the sector's largest companies even wealthier.

We recently released our list of the 50 richest people on earth based on data from Wealth-X, which conducts research on the super-wealthy. Three people in the top 10 are in retail - including the visionaries behind Zara, Amazon, and IKEA - and 12 others cracked the list as well.

To find the wealthiest people in the world, Wealth-X looked at its database of dossiers on more than 110,000 ultra-high-net-worth people and used a proprietary valuation model that takes into account each person's assets, then adjusts estimated net worth to account for currency-exchange rates, local taxes, savings rates, investment performance, and other factors. We narrowed that list down to just the billionaires in the retail industry.

Here are the 15 wealthiest people who made their billions in retail.