The year 2014 was a good year for many women around the world – according to Forbes, they have broken their own record from last year, rising to the number of 172 women on the Forbes list of World Billionaires. They are still taking up only 10% of the list, but in comparison with last year’s 138, we can see a great progress.
They are women from America, Germany, France, Switzerland, etc, and they all have one thing in common: money, and lots of it.
1. Christy Walton
Ranking 6th on the overall billionaires list, we can say that Mrs. Walton knows her way with money. She inherited most of her wealth from her late husband John Walton, who died in a plane crash in 2005. His father, John Walton, was the founder of one of the world’s biggest retailers, Wal-Mart. With an amazing $42.1 billion, Christy shows she was not only able to pick a good family to marry into, but also to keep up the business when she was left a widow. Another source of Christy’s net worth is her 27% stake in the First Solar Company, which is worth around $1.8 Billion, making her the richest of the Waltons.
She is ranked as the highest female philanthropist according to the amount of money she gives as a percentage of her wealth. Between 2002 and 2006, when her estimated wealth was $16.3 billion, she gave a total of $3.5 billion to charity. She is well known for taking part in many non-profit organizations.
Apart from making and keeping her money, 60-year-old Mrs. Walton keeps a very private life in Jackson, Wyoming.
2. Alice Walton
Walton family also takes up the 9th, 10th and 11th place on the Forbes list. Mrs. Alice Walton, another heiress of the Wal-Mart fortune, is the proud 10th richest person in the world.
Her net worth of $39.7 billion has given her the chance to focus on curating art, and open her Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas in 2011. This museum features works of Andy Warhol, Norman Rockwell and Georgia O’Keeffe, as well as some pieces from her personal collection (valued in hundreds of millions of dollars). Christy Walton’s sister-in-law has also been spending her wealth on politics – supporting the Republican Party, and, lately, the presidential bid by Hillary Clinton.
She was twice married, but divorced both men.
3. Liliane Bettencourt
This 92-year-old French lady is no longer the richest woman in the world, though her wealth has increased this year thanks to her company’s stock price. Pushed to the 3rd place, but still with $38.8 billion she can hardly feel bad. Liliane has been the principal shareholder of L’Oreal since her father died in 1957. Since 2012, though, when she lost the legal battle with her daughter Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, she is no longer involved in running L’Oreal. She was replaced on the company’s board by her 25-year-old grandson Jean-Victor Meyers.
Liliane is a big philanthropist. In 1987, together with her husband and daughter, she founded the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation (la Fondation Bettencourt Schueller) which supports and develops humanitarian, medical and cultural projects. This foundation also sponsors many prizes, for example, the annual “Liliane Bettencourt Prize for Life Sciences”, which is awarded to the top European biomedical researcher under the age of 45. Also, the foundation recently helped fund the Claude Monet wing at the Musée Marmottan Monet.
4. Jacqueline Mars
As her last name says, this woman is, along with her two brothers, the owner of candy maker Mars, the largest candy company in the world. Her net worth is $24 billion, which puts her on the 26th place in the overall Forbes list. Jacqueline’s grandfather Frank started the company in 1911, and nowadays it makes the most popular candies such as Mars (obviously), M&M’s, Snickers, Twix, Milky Way, Uncle Ben’s Rice etc. Jacqueline and her brothers are all on the company board of directors, but have no role in its day-to-day operations.
5. Susanne Klatten
The richest woman in Germany, and number 45 on the billionaires list, Sussanne Klatten owes her fortune to the stake she inherited in automaker BMW from her father, Herbert Quandt. Susanne, her mother Johanna Quandt and her brother Stefan Quandt together own 50% of BMW and all three of them are billionaires. Susanne fortune is estimated at around $17.5 billion.
Susanne Klatten has proven to be a real business woman and economist. Apart from BMW, she also controls chemical manufacturer Altana, and holds stakes in a few other companies, such as carbon and graphite producer SGL, soil additive company Geohumus, oil recycling company Avista Oil of Germany and many more.
Susanne married Jan Klatten in 1990, and they have three children. They live in Munich. She is one of the biggest donors of the Christian Democratic Union, a center-right political party in Germany. Also, in 2007, she was awarded Bayerischer Verdienstorden, the Bavarian Order of Merit.
An interesting fact about Susanne: when she realized that her wealth is sometimes a problem, she started working incognito often as Susanne Kant.
6. Laurene Powell Jobs
Steve Jobs’ 51-year-old widow, co-founder and former CEO of Apple Inc. has a net worth of $17.4 billion. She is also the largest individual shareholder of The Walt Disney Company – she holds around 130 million shares.
She is the founder and chair of the Emerson Collective, an organization that focuses on advancing social reforms and helping under-resourced students. She also founded, with Carlos Watson, College Track, a non-profit college completion program in East Palo Alto. Since 2013, Powell Jobs sits on the board of directors of College Track, Conservation International, The Foundation for Excellence in Education, NewSchools Venture Fund and Stanford University.
Powell Jobs is also involved in politics – she is one of the biggest donors to Ready for Hillary, which supports Hillary Clinton’s presidential run. She is also a big fighter for the rights of immigrants, which is the cause of her many visits to Capitol Hall.
She has three children with Steve Jobs – son Reed and daughters Erin and Eve. In 2014, Laurene Powell Jobs was ranked the 29th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes, which is 10 places up from last year’s 39th place.
They are women from America, Germany, France, Switzerland, etc, and they all have one thing in common: money, and lots of it.
1. Christy Walton
She is ranked as the highest female philanthropist according to the amount of money she gives as a percentage of her wealth. Between 2002 and 2006, when her estimated wealth was $16.3 billion, she gave a total of $3.5 billion to charity. She is well known for taking part in many non-profit organizations.
Apart from making and keeping her money, 60-year-old Mrs. Walton keeps a very private life in Jackson, Wyoming.
2. Alice Walton
Her net worth of $39.7 billion has given her the chance to focus on curating art, and open her Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas in 2011. This museum features works of Andy Warhol, Norman Rockwell and Georgia O’Keeffe, as well as some pieces from her personal collection (valued in hundreds of millions of dollars). Christy Walton’s sister-in-law has also been spending her wealth on politics – supporting the Republican Party, and, lately, the presidential bid by Hillary Clinton.
She was twice married, but divorced both men.
3. Liliane Bettencourt
Liliane is a big philanthropist. In 1987, together with her husband and daughter, she founded the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation (la Fondation Bettencourt Schueller) which supports and develops humanitarian, medical and cultural projects. This foundation also sponsors many prizes, for example, the annual “Liliane Bettencourt Prize for Life Sciences”, which is awarded to the top European biomedical researcher under the age of 45. Also, the foundation recently helped fund the Claude Monet wing at the Musée Marmottan Monet.
4. Jacqueline Mars
5. Susanne Klatten
Susanne Klatten has proven to be a real business woman and economist. Apart from BMW, she also controls chemical manufacturer Altana, and holds stakes in a few other companies, such as carbon and graphite producer SGL, soil additive company Geohumus, oil recycling company Avista Oil of Germany and many more.
Susanne married Jan Klatten in 1990, and they have three children. They live in Munich. She is one of the biggest donors of the Christian Democratic Union, a center-right political party in Germany. Also, in 2007, she was awarded Bayerischer Verdienstorden, the Bavarian Order of Merit.
An interesting fact about Susanne: when she realized that her wealth is sometimes a problem, she started working incognito often as Susanne Kant.
6. Laurene Powell Jobs
She is the founder and chair of the Emerson Collective, an organization that focuses on advancing social reforms and helping under-resourced students. She also founded, with Carlos Watson, College Track, a non-profit college completion program in East Palo Alto. Since 2013, Powell Jobs sits on the board of directors of College Track, Conservation International, The Foundation for Excellence in Education, NewSchools Venture Fund and Stanford University.
Powell Jobs is also involved in politics – she is one of the biggest donors to Ready for Hillary, which supports Hillary Clinton’s presidential run. She is also a big fighter for the rights of immigrants, which is the cause of her many visits to Capitol Hall.
She has three children with Steve Jobs – son Reed and daughters Erin and Eve. In 2014, Laurene Powell Jobs was ranked the 29th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes, which is 10 places up from last year’s 39th place.