Who is the richest woman in the world? According to Forbes‘ 2024 data, 369 out of 2,781 billionaires, or 13.3% are women, up from 337 last year. The women on the list are collectively worth billions. Despite the recent economic slowdown since COVID-19, they are still wealthier than the previous year. Let’s read about them!
The Richest Woman In The World (2024)
10. Yang Huiyan & Family
Net Worth: $3 Billion | Field: Real Estate | Country: China
According to Forbes, Yang Huyian’s net worth has fallen to only $3 billion from a staggering $23 billion in 2021. The 38-year-old Yang inhabits 57% of real estate developer Country Garden, a stake primarily assigned to her by her father Yeung Kwok Keung in 2007. Yang’s young sister Ziyang also sits on Country Garden’s board.
Yang owns Bright Scholar Education Holdings, a Chinese education company that went public on the New York Stock Exchange in the year 2007. She is a student at Ohio State University. During the hard times of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company also launched robotic, automated food serving stations that feed Chinese medical workers in Wuhan.
9. Zhong Huijuan
Net Worth: $10.3 Billion | Field: Pharmaceuticals | Country: Germany
Zhong Huijuan owns a Chinese drug maker Hansoh Pharmaceutical. When the COVID-19 pandemic was widely spread in her home country, the stock went up to 10% from early January through mid-March. Her husband, Sun Piaoyang, is also a pharmaceuticals billionaire and leads Shanghai-listed Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine.
Zhong inhabits over three-quarters of Hansoh Pharmaceutical with her daughter, Sun Yuan. Headquartered in the Chinese coastal city of Lianyungang, Hansoh Pharmaceutical made it official on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in June 2019.
8. Laurene Powell Jobs & Family
Net Worth: $14.8 Billion | Field: Stocks in Apple and Disney | Country: USA
Laurence Powell, the widow of late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who died in the year 2011, inherits billions of dollars of stock in Apple and Disney. She has been working on Emerson Collective, a hybrid investment, social impact, and philanthropic firm; she founded in the year 2004.
In the year 2017, she acquired a minority stake in the parent of the NBA’s Washington Wizards and the NHL’s Washington Capitals. She also bought stakes in various media platforms, affecting a majority of the Atlantic magazine and all of California Sunday and Popup Magazine. She launched the Emerson Collective Foundation during the second half of 2016 with a gift of $1.2 billion, much of it in Disney shares.
7. Susanne Klatten
Net Worth: $22 Billion | Field: BMW Automobile, Pharmaceuticals | Country: Germany
Susanne Klatten, the daughter of the BMW carmaker, lost her net worth by 20% in the last year. As the car sales slowed down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, BMW’s stock fell 24% in the initial start of March. Klatten is the only owner and deputy chairman of Atlanta, a pharmaceutical and specialty chemical company. Klatten inhabits 19.2% of automaker BMW and her brother, Stefan Quandt, occupies 23.7%.
Susanne Klatten is an economics graduate with an MBA degree. She also assisted in renovating her grandfather’s Atlanta AG into a world-class pharmaceutical specialty chemical corporation. She owns stakes in wind power outfit Nordex AG and carbon and graphite producer SGL Group.
6. Gina Rinehart
Net Worth: $30 Billion | Field: Mining Business | Country: Australia
Gina Rinehart Australia’s richest resident built her success on iron ore. The daughter of a high-profile iron ore explorer Lang Hancock, Gina put up with her late father’s bankrupt inheritance and restored it into something much bigger. The Roy Hill mining project, which started shipments to Asia in 2015, gave her the biggest wealth.
She has been the chairperson of the mineral-extracting corporation, Hancock Prospecting Group since 1992.
Also, the mining magnate is Australia’s third-largest cattle producer, with a portfolio of properties across the nation. Her wealth was decreased by $2 billion in the preceding year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic that shoved down the prices in the iron ore industry.
5. Mackenzie Bezos
Net Worth: $35 Billion | Ex-wife of Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos | Country: USA
Mackenzie Bezos debuted with the 3rd position in the list, she divorced her husband Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in July 2019. MacKenzie walked away with 25% of Jeff’s Amazon stake or 4% of the company. She also endorsed a Giving Pledge, vowing to offer away at least a minimum of half of her wealth in May 2019. She founded the Bystander Revolution, which is an anti-bullying organization in 2014.
4. Jacqueline Mars
Net Worth: $48 Billion | Field: Mars Candy | Country: USA
Jacqueline Mars owns approximately one-third of Mars, the world’s largest candy maker which is known for M&Ms and Milky Way bars, launched by her grandfather. Her brother John inhabits an estimated one-third of Mars; her late brother Forrest Jr’s. Four daughters occupy the rest, which also acquires a great pet food and vet care business. For almost 20 years, Jacqueline Mars served the company until 2016.
3. Julia Koch & Family
Net Worth: $74.2 Billion | Field: Koch Industries | Country: USA
New to the list Julia Koch joined the billionaire’s list after she, along with her three children inherited a 42% stake in Koch Industries (Businesses in Oil & Gas, Chemicals, Fertilizers, Energy, Forestry, and much more) from her husband, David. He died at the age of 79, in August 2019. Julia married David in the year 1996. She with her husband has generously donated $10 million to Mount Sinai Medical Center and another $10 million to Stanford’s Children’s Hospital to research food allergies.
2. Alice Walton
Net Worth: $91 Billion | Field: Walmart Heiress, Equity Analyst | Country: USA
The only daughter of the founder of Walmart, (Sam Walton) Alice Walton has turned out to be the second richest woman in the world. Unlike her brothers, Rob and Jim, Alice Walton has never taken an active role in running Walmart and has instead become a patron of the arts. In 2011, she inaugurated a $50 million museum called Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, to house her $500 million private art collection.
The market is going through a downpour all over the world, and Walton’s wealth boosted by 23% since last year. She does not perform a role in Walmart. Still, assists in leading a program the Walton family foundation that will grant $300 million in bonds to assist charter schools in investing in it and refurbishing the facilities.
1. Francoise Bettencourt Meyers & Family
Net Worth: $99 Billion | Field: L’Oréal Personal Care | Country: France
Francoise Bettencourt Meyers is the richest woman in the world, for the fourth consecutive year since 2020, and the granddaughter of L’Oréal’s founder Eugene Schueller. She became France’s L’Oréal heiress in the year 2017 after her mother Liliane Bettencourt passed away at the age of 94. Bettencourt Meyers and her family owns 33% of L’Oréal stock and recorded its best sales expansion in more than a decade in 2019.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the wealth of Bettencourt Meyer’s declined $400 million, since shares of the cosmetics giant dropped 12% in the first two weeks of March 2020. But she has managed to bring the business on track.
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