Only a small fraction of the world's billionaires are women who have made their fortunes on their own. Despite this, their numbers are at an all-time high this year. China's ability to create wealth among women is the strongest in the world.
In this year's census, 43 are Chinese citizens (seven of whom are from Hong Kong) and 30 are U.S. citizens.
文|Natalie Wu
Becoming a female billionaire is a very unlikely event. In Forbes' 2024 list of the world's billionaires, only 369 of the 2,781 billionaires (about 13%) are women. An even rarer subset of this group is the women who have made their own ten-figure fortunes, accounting for only 3.6 percent of all those on the list.
This elite group includes entrepreneurs (like Spanx founder Sarah Blakely), entertainers (Taylor Swift), co-founders (including women who started businesses with their husbands, like Peggy Chiang of Panda Fast), and career managers (like Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's former chief operating officer).
Despite their relatively small numbers, there are more self-made female billionaires this year than ever before, almost four times as many as a decade ago. One thing hasn't changed: the group is mostly made up of women from China and the United States, and this year includes 43 Chinese citizens (seven of them from Hong Kong) and 30 U.S. citizens.
Switzerland's Rafaela Aponte-Diamant topped the list of richest self-made women for the second year in a row. She is the co-founder and co-owner of the world's largest shipping company, Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), with a net worth of about $33.1 billion, ranking 48th on the list of the world's richest people. The second richest self-made woman is Diane Hendricks of the United States, who co-founded ABC Supply, a building materials company with her husband and has served as chairman of the company since her husband's death in 2007. Hendrix is worth about $20.9 billion, ranking 92nd on the list of the world's richest people.
This year, a total of 15 women have joined the ranks of self-made billionaires, most notably pop singer Taylor Swift. The superstar feasted audiences on her period tour and concert films last year, valuing her net worth at around $1.1 billion. Two other tech upstarts made the list thanks in large part to the explosion of artificial intelligence: Lisa Su, the chief executive of semiconductor company AMD (worth about $1.3 billion), and Michelle Zatlyn ($1.2 billion), co-founder, president and chief operating officer of Cloudflare, a Canadian cybersecurity and internet infrastructure company, whose stock has soared 65% in the past year.
Fashion designer Tory Burch ($1 billion) is back in billionaire status after eight years, thanks to a resurgence in revenue for her eponymous fashion brand. Other self-made female billionaires include host Oprah Winfrey ($2.8 billion), Skims co-founder and reality star Kim Kardashian ($1.7 billion) and singer-turned-beauty tycoon Rihanna ($1.4 billion).
Here are the 10 richest self-made women in the world. (Net worth calculation as of March 8, 2024.) ）
Rafaela Aponte-Diamante
Rafaela Aponte-Diamant
Net worth: $33.1 billion
Age: 79 years old
Source of wealth: shipping
Nationality: Swiss
Aponte-Diamante and her husband, Gianluigi Aponte, each own 50% of the shares of the world's largest shipping company in terms of container capacity, MSC. In 1970, the Apontes founded the company by using a loan of $200,000 to buy their first boat. In 1988, the couple expanded their business into the cruise sector and now run one of the world's largest cruise lines, MSC Cruises. Aponte Diamante is a member of the board of directors of the MSC Foundation, which is personally responsible for the decoration of the company's cruise ships.
Diane Hendrix
Diane Hendricks
Net worth: $20.9 billion
Age: 77 years old
Source of wealth: building supplies
Nationality: American
黛安·亨德里克斯。 图片来源：GABRIELA HASBUN/THE FORBES COLLECTION
As chairman and sole owner of ABC Supply Co., a building materials company, Hendrix is the richest self-made woman in the United States. Founded in 1982 with her husband, Kenneth Hendricks (who died in 2007), the company is one of the largest wholesale distributors of roofing, siding and windows in the United States. Under her leadership, ABC made several major acquisitions, including the acquisition of rival Bradco in 2010 and L&W Supply, a distributor of building materials, in 2016.
Judy Loew and the family
Judy Love & family
Net worth: $10.2 billion
Age: 86 years old
Source of wealth: gas stations
Nationality: American
In 1964, Loew, along with her husband Tom (who died in 2023), borrowed $5,000 from the latter's parents to open a truck stop and convenience store chain Love's Travel Stops & Country Stores. Today, the company, owned by Loew and her four children, has more than 640 locations in 42 states, and plans to open 20 to 25 more locations this year, the company's 60th anniversary, while renovating 35 to 40 older stores.
Dennis Coates
Denise Coates
Net worth: $9.5 billion
Age: 56 years old
Source of wealth: online gambling
Nationality: British
Coates founded Bet365 in 2000 and launched an online betting site the following year. Today, the company says it attracts more than 90 million customers from around the world. She and her brother, fellow billionaire John Coates, are the company's largest shareholders and co-CEOs.
Zhong Huijuan
Net worth: $7.7 billion
Age: 63 years old
Source of wealth: Pharmaceutical companies
Nationality: Chinese
Chung, a former chemistry teacher, is now Asia's richest self-made woman. In 1995, she gave up her teaching position to found Jiangsu Hansoh Pharmaceutical Group, a pharmaceutical company that produces a variety of drugs with a focus on anti-tumor, anti-infective, central nervous system diseases, metabolic diseases, and autoimmune diseases. She took the company public in 2019 and owns nearly two-thirds of the company with her daughter, Sun Yuan. Ms. Zhong's husband, Sun Piaoyang, is also a billionaire in the pharmaceutical industry, running the Shanghai-listed Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceutical.
Tatiana Bakachuk
Tatyana Bakalchuk
Net worth: $7.4 billion
Age: 48 years old
Source of wealth: e-commerce
Nationality: Russian
Bakachuk is the main owner of Russian e-commerce retailer Wildberries. She started the company in 2004 while on maternity leave when she realized how difficult it was for young mothers to buy clothes for themselves while caring for their newborns. The company now receives more than 10 million orders per day and processed 1.5 billion orders from customers in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan in 2022.
Judy Faulkner
Judy Faulkner
Net worth: $7.4 billion
Age: 80 years old
Source of wealth: medical software
Nationality: American
2023福布斯医疗保健峰会。 图片来源：GETTY IMAGES
Faulkner is the CEO and founder of Epic Systems, a provider of medical records software that serves more than 300 million patients and is the largest provider of electronic medical records in the United States. She started the company in 1979 in a basement in Wisconsin with a capital of $70,000 and two part-time employees. Last year, the company began integrating generative AI into the platform, allowing clinicians to use the technology through software.
Wang Laichun
Net worth: $6.6 billion
Age: 56 years old
Source of wealth: electronic components
Nationality: Hong Kong, China
In 2004, Wang Laichun and her brother Wang Laisheng founded Luxshare Precision, an electronics manufacturer. Mr. Wang, the chairman of the Apple supplier, holds about 17 percent of the company, which went public in Shenzhen in 2010.
Zhou Qunfei
Net worth: $6.1 billion
Age: 54 years old
Source of wealth: Smartphone screens
Nationality: Hong Kong, China
Zhou's Shenzhen-listed Lens Technology makes touchscreens for Apple, Tesla and Samsung smartphones. Zhou Qunfei, who was a migrant worker as a teenager, founded Lens Technology in 2003 and took the company public in 2015. Her wealth has not changed from a year ago.
Wu Yajun
Net worth: $5.8 billion
Age: 60 years old
Source of wealth: Real estate
Nationality: Chinese
The slump in China's property market has hit the share price of Longfor Properties, a Hong Kong-listed property developer. In 1993, Wu Yajun and her ex-husband, billionaire Cai Kui, co-founded Longfor Real Estate. Over the past year, Longfor's share price has fallen by more than 50 percent, wiping her fortune by $4.3 billion. Mr. Wu resigned as chairman of Longfor in 2022 but still holds about 43% of the company.
The author of this article is a Forbes contributor, and the content of the article represents the author's own views only.
This article is translated from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/natalive/2024/04/03/the-worlds-richest-self-made-women-in-2024-taylor-swift-kim-kardashian-rihanna/?sh=4B8375b71
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Header image source: Getty Images
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