Who is Antonio Vicente Giménez, the founder of Panama Jack in Elche?

Antonio Vicente Giménez was born in Elche on 20 November 1949, in the working-class district of El Raval, the son of a leather worker. At 13, in 1962, he went to work in a women's shoe factory, that of José Amorós Torregrosa, for 300 pesetas a month. Around 1971, after his military service, he became a sales agent for the Aragon-based company Sandra.

In November 1973 a car accident left him with neither a vehicle nor a job. He then designed a sandal with an embroidered upper, for which a company ordered 40,000 pairs, made in a borrowed country house. In 1982 he founded Grupp Internacional S.A. in Elche, dedicated to exporting white-label footwear to the United States and Germany. The Panama Jack brand was born in 1989, out of a small Elche workshop, with mountain boots made entirely in Spain.

The group posted 78 million euros in turnover in 2018 (up 43% year on year) and 79.2 million for the financial year ending in April 2023, for a net profit of 9.68 million. "Even though we are hit by the crisis, like everyone else, we are a strong and well-established company," he told medios.uchceu.es on 15 April 2010.

The founder has always refused to offshore production: "If we had stayed in China, we would have been forced to close the Elche factory," he told Diario Información on 27 February 2011. Since 2017 his wife María José Martínez has taken part in running the company (he holds 75% of the shares, she 25%), and the business remains family-owned, its production rooted in Spain.

Illustrative photo: a pair of black leather boots, a generic product image (it represents neither a Panama Jack product nor Antonio Vicente Giménez), by Safedom, CC BY-SA 3.0 licence, Wikimedia Commons.

This portrait was prepared with AI assistance, then cross-checked, verified and edited by our editorial team, who take full editorial responsibility for it. Facts verified on 4 August 2026.