Today the women have been performing exceptionally well in many fields of life and industry. They have collected enormous wealth for themselves, and they are today the leaders of many companies worldwide. Women are known for their excellent competitive and managing skills, and they have been able to show this to the world. From small firms to significant acquisition today, women are everywhere.
The bad thing about our world is that today we only talk about the successful and richest men in the world. We never stop to discuss the successful women and the self-made rich billionaire women around the world.
We know that the world’s richest person is none other than Jeff Bezos, but we don’t know who the world’s richest woman is.
So, today we decided to make the list of top 13 richest women of the world. The list contains the name of all the alive women right now; these are at the top of their respective industries right now. They are the global leaders and also the face of women empowerment. So, let’s have a look over them, and let’s rank the 13 women in descending order of their wealth.
So, here is the list of top 13 richest women in the world as of December 2024.
13. Gina Rinehart – Net worth: $10.2 Billion
Gina Rinehart is the chairman of Australia’s one of the biggest privately-owned mining company Hancock Prospecting which was founded by her father. The company was founded by Lang Hancock. She is one of the wealthiest people in Australia with a net worth of $10.2 Billion as of December 2024, and she has been listed in Australia’s 50 wealthiest people and The Australian Financial Review.
She is considered one of the richest women in the world by Forbes. She was born in Perth, Australia, and she spent her early years in the Pilbara. After the death of her father, she inherited a total of 76.6% shares of him in 1992, and she succeeded him as the executive chairman of the company. The other remaining shares of the company were transferred to a trust. Trust belongs to her four children.
Rinehart was also Australia’s wealthiest person, start from 2011 and till 2015. Her wealth peaked in 2012 as it was estimated to be around $29 billion, and then she overtook Christy Walton under this category. Her net worth dropped significantly over these years due to a slowdown in the mining sector of Australia.
12. Miuccia Prada – Net worth: $11 Billion
One of the inherit of the Prada fashion brand, Miuccia Bianchi Prada, is an Italian businesswoman who was initially a fashion designer. She is currently the head designer at Prada, and she is also the founder of the subsidiary Miu Miu.
She is the youngest granddaughter of Mario Prada, and she took over the family-owned luxury goods business in 1978. The company has acquired Jil Sander, Helmet Land, and the shoemaker company Church & Co. since then. She opened her art gallery in 2002 under Prada.
She was also listed as the 75th most powerful woman in the world in 2014, and she has an estimated net worth of around $11 billion as of December 2024.
11. Blair Parry–Okeden – Net Worth: $11.3 Billion
As of December 2024, With a net worth of around $11.2 Billion, Blair Parry is one of the richest women in the world. She is an American born heiress and philanthropist who currently resides in Australia. According to Forbes, she was also the wealthiest person by net worth in 2016 in Australia.
She is the heiress of Cox Enterprises, which is a privately-held world’s one of the biggest conglomerate. She doesn’t take much of the interests in the business, and she was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1950, later she attended the school which was founded by her mother, Barbara Cox Anthony. When her mother died, she got 25% of her mother’s stakes in the company.
Talking of her personal life, she was married to Simon Parry-Okeden, and she had two children with him. She is currently divorced.
10. Abigail Johnson – Net worth: $16.3 Billion
Abigail is third in the family generation of the Fidelity Investments. The Fidelity is a privately held mutual fund giant, which was founded by her grandfather Edward C. Johnson II, and she is the first woman to take over the company reigns, and now she has proven herself to be the most powerful woman in the field of finance with a net worth of $16.3 billion as of December 2024.
She has brought many changes to the firm, which is a 72-year-old, and she has steered away from the company from its traditional, open-end mutual funds and introduced the millennial-friendly zero-fee index funds. The firm also embraced cryptocurrency as she launched the platform for Ether and platform for bitcoin-trading in 2018.
She is also known for promoting a suitable environment for women in her company, and she knows that the financial services are notoriously biased against women. She encourages them by fair hiring processes and by raising awareness on sexual harassment.
She is married to Christopher J McKown, who himself is a successful businessman, and she has a daughter named Julia McKown. She got her degree in MBA from Harvard Business School.
9. Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken – Net Worth: $16.6 Billion
One of the biggest brewers company in the world is none other than Heineken. The company has always been in the top 10 list of the world’s largest brewers, and Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken is the woman behind all this massive success of the company in recent years.
She wasn’t always groomed to take over the company, and the family business was founded by her great-grandfather Gerard, 150 years ago. The family business was then passed to her father and later to her. Before this was a stay-at-home wife for her investment banker husband and her five children.
All of this changed when she inherited 23% controlling stakes of her father’s company when her father passed away in 2002. As she was his only child, she had to take this role, and till now, she has performed her character quite well in the company. She has stabilized the declining stock and also hired the CEO Jean- Francois van Boxmeer. She also enables acquisitions to boost the position of the company in the market. Her net worth currently stands at $16.6 billion as of December 2024.
8. Susanne Klatten – Net Worth: $20.3 Billion
Susanne Klatten is the second wealthiest person in the whole of Germany with a net worth of $20.3 billion as of December 2024, and she has over 19.2% shares in the automaker BMW. She is also the sole owner of Atlanta AG, and she owns some stakes in the Nordex AG, Geohumus- a solid additive company and the carbon and graphite producer SGL Group.
She has been instrumental in transforming her grandfather’s pharmaceutical chemical company Atlanta AG which is now a world-class chemical corporation. She was also fully committed to the development of the company even before acquiring it in 2008. The company is the true leader in the world of paint, coatings, and adhesives.
Talking of her personal life, she got married to Jan Klatten in 1990 and was then separated recently in 2018. She is the mother of three children, and she is the richest woman in Germany.
7. Laurene Powell Jobs – Net Worth: $23.3 Billion
It is not a hidden fact that Steve Jobs was one of the wealthiest people ever to live. He was the working mind behind the world-class products of Apple and has created a perfect ecosystem of Apple Products. So after his death, his widow Laurene inherited the US$20 billion worth of stakes in his proprietaries, Apple and Disney and currently has a net worth of $23.3 billion as of December 2024.
She got these stakes in 2011 when Steve Jobs passed away. Since his death, she hasn’t put her much focus in the company, and she has been focussing her energy in her for-profit social firm Emerson Collective which has been named after her favorite writer Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Her social change organization currently concentrates on education, immigration reform, media, environment, and health. She uses impact investing and other ways to spur the changes. She has also invested in Atlantic Magazine and some other non-profit publications like ProPublica and Mother Jones.
6. Yang Huiyan – Net Worth: $25.1 Billion
Yang Huiyan is the daughter of Guangdong developer and the Chinese self-made business tycoon Yeung Kwok Keung with the net worth of $25.1 billion as of December 2024. Her father founded the Country Garden Holdings, which is a development company. She got 70% of her father’s holdings company when he died in 2007, and she became the wealthiest person then.
She is now 38, and she is the richest woman of China, which over 57% stakes the Country Garden Holdings. Yang is also the chairperson of the Bright Scholar Education Holdings, and it is the primary operator of bilingual K-12 schools that operate in the country. Five of her company persons became billionaires when the company was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2007. Recently the 9.9% of her company’s stakes were acquired by Pink An for the US $800 million.
She got married to Chen Chong in 2006, and there are no reports of her children yet.
5. Jacqueline Mars – Net Worth: $30.6 Billion
One of the biggest confectionery companies in the world is none other than Mars, and it is famous for its Mars Bar and M&M’s. The person behind this is Jacqueline Mars, who operates Mars Inc. with her brother John.
She has a net worth of $30.6 billion as of December 2024 and she possesses an estimate third of the company’s shares, and she joined the company in 1982 as the Food Product Group President. She retired in 2001 but continued to serve on the board till 2016. The chairman of the board is currently none other than her son, Stephen Badger.
Jacqueline is also a well-known philanthropist, and she serves as the president of the Mars Foundation. She had made some significant contributions to the National Symphony Orchestra and Australian Outback doctors through her organization. She currently serves on six boards, which include the National Archives and the Smithsonian.
4. MacKenzie Bezos – Net worth: $38.7 Billion
The divorcee of Jeff Bezos, who got 25% of his shares in the company which amounted to 4% stakes of the company and was valued at the US $36 billion at the time of divorce. Jeff inevitably broke her heart by cheating on her, but she made a fortune for herself once she got the divorce as she is in the list of richest women in the world.
Her net worth has significantly increased over the years up to $38.7 billion as of December 2024, and it was earlier reported that she donated US$350 million worth of her shares in January. MacKenzie also signed the Giving Pledge in May in 2019, and she has promised that she would donate at least half of her wealth.
She was also involved heavily with the Amazon operation in the early days, but she pulled herself back in 1997 when she was ought, to begin with, her focus on fiction writing. Till now, she has published two novels.
3. Julia Flesher Koch – Net worth: $41.2 Billion
Julia Flesher Koch inherited the stakes of her late husband in Koch industries in 2019, and this made her one of the richest women of the planet with a net worth of $41.2 billion as of December 2024. Her husband was David Koch, one of the Koch brothers, and he was the chairperson of the Koch Industries. The brothers were heavily involved with politics.
She, along with her three children, owns 42% of the stakes in the company. Koch Industry operates in the field of finance, petroleum, natural gas, asphalt, any of its other subsidiaries. In 2019, she was the 7th most precious person in the world.
Julia is also the president of the David H. Koch Foundation, and the organization has contributed more than the US $200 million in the field of education, science medical research. She is also very passionate about the arts. She has also served on the board of directors for the School of American Ballet.
2. Alice Walton – Net Worth: $51.3 Billion
Alice is none other than one of the major shareholder in one of the world’s largest retailer, Walmart. She hasn’t been much active in the company, unlike her brother, but her wealth has been continuously increasing due to her stakes in the company. She is the daughter of Walmart’s founder Sam Walton, and she is also a well-known philanthropist. As of December 2024, Her net worth is $51.3 billion.
She is the founder of the famous Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in 2011, and Crystal Bridges has been the first significant art museum since the 1970s. The museum has amassed amazing artwork from many artists like Norman Rockwell, Andy Warhol, and Mark Rothko. She is also the founder of Art Bridges in 2017, which is a non-profit foundation and is aimed to provide greater access to American art in the country.
Alice has been divorced earlier, but her spouse’s name is not known yet. She has three other siblings which whom she shares her stakes in the company.
1. Françoise Bettencourt Meyers – Net worth: $54.7 Billion
With a net worth of $54.7 billion as of December 2024, The first place in the list belongs to none other than the heiress of L’Oréal, Françoise. The company was founded by her grandfather Eugene Schueller, and she got the company when her mother passed away in 2017. She is also the chairwoman of the family’s holdings company Tethys ASA as it owns major 33 percent stakes in the company.
She is also the known author of Bible Commentaries, and she likes to work on Jewish-Christian relations. When her mother died, she had the net worth of $39.5 billion, and she has increased her wealth over these years with her hard work, and she is also among the top 20 wealthiest people on earth. She does a lot of philanthropy and contributes to many of the noble causes.
She is also the mother of two children. Her husband is Jean-Pierre Meyers, who is the French Businessman himself, and she lives in France.
Conclusion
So this was the list of top 13 richest women in the world, which contains the name of some of the most prominent and successful women on our planet. These women are an inspiration to many people on earth, and they are the truth of the face of women empowerment in the world right now. They have amassed a lot of fame over these years, and many other women in the world have gone from rags to riches in no-time due to their hard work.
Today there are more than 100 millionaire women on the planet, and there are many CEOs and owners of the big firms who are women. The women are the backbone of the industry today, and we have nothing but utter respect for them.