F rom the United States to China, 327 women rose up the ranks of billionaires in 2021, jumping from 241 in the previous year. The women on the ranking are collectively worth $1.53 trillion, an increment of over 60 percent over the previous year. The list of the richest women in the world is growing at an increasingly fast pace.
These ladies are the CEOs of Loreal, Amazon, Koch Industries, and even Bumble—yes, you read it correctly! Though we might not be including all of them in this list (sorry, we had to pick favourites). Some of these ladies share their fortunes to their siblings, husbands and even their children.
So without further ado, let's get down to it!
Francoise was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, on July 10, 1953. Despite her rigorous Catholic upbringing, she has published several books on Jewish-Christian ties and Biblical interpretations. Eugene Schueller, the inventor of L'Oreal, was her grandpa.
She was also embroiled in a long-running dispute when she sued Francois-Marie Banier in 2008, alleging that he stole money from her mother. Later that year, she stated that they had reached an out-of-court settlement. Francoise was classified among the top twenty wealthiest women in the world in 2017 after her mother died in September 2017 with a fortune of roughly $39.5 billion. She is now the richest lady on the planet.
Françoise Bettencourt Meyers took over as the world's wealthiest woman from Sam Walton's daughter, but she still made $7.4 billion in the last year owing to Walmart stock climbing more than 5% since mid-March 2020. Free shipping as part of an Amazon Prime-like subscription service helped raise online sales by 69 percent in the year through January, according to the retailer.
Julia Koch, an American aristocrat and socialite, is the widower of David Koch, from whom she acquired her wealth after he passed away in 2019. Koch and her descendants presently own 42% of Koch Industries, which was America's biggest private firm by sales last year. David Koch's elder brother, Charles Koch, is chair of the billion-dollar company's management board.
Mackenzie Scott and Jeff Bezos split in mid-2019 after 25 years of marriage. As part of the divorce settlement, Jeff gave MacKenzie 25% of his Amazon stock, which amounted to 4% of the firm. On the list of the world's richest people, she is ranked 20th.
Yang Huiyan is a Chinese-born real estate developer and millionaire entrepreneur. She became a Cyprus citizen in 2018 and is the largest stakeholder of Country Garden Holdings, which her father Yang Guoqiang primarily passed to her in 2007. When her father handed 70 percent of his shares to her before bringing Country Garden Holdings public in Hong Kong in 2007, Yang Huiyan became an overnight multi-billionaire. She was just 25 years old at the time.
Miriam Adelson is a wealthy Israeli-American doctor. She became a contributor to right wing political groups in the United States and Israel after her 1991 marriage to U.S. business tycoon Sheldon Adelson. The Woodrow Wilson Award for Corporate Citizenship was given to Miriam and Sheldon Adelson by the Smithsonian Institution's Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in 2008.
She was granted honorary citizenship of Jerusalem in 2013. Donald Trump presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2018.
Adelson, with her complete ownership of Las Vegas Sands, is the 44th wealthiest person in the world, the 5th wealthiest woman, and the richest Israeli as of June of 2021, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Her estimated net worth has been estimated at US$29.6 billion.
Laurene Powell Jobs is the widow of Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple. She formed the Emerson Collective, a limited liability company that focuses on social equality and immigration policies, in 2004. She's also a big supporter of Democratic leaders like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. She is also the co-founder and president of College Track, an institution that helps underprivileged high school students prepare for college. Powell Jobs and her three children live in Palo Alto, California.
Susanne Klatten, the daughter of Johanna and Herbert Quandt, is a German rich aristocrat. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, her net wealth was projected to be US$27.7 billion in November 2021, making her the wealthiest female in Germany as well as the 65th richest person on the planet.
She was enrolled in a management and marketing course at the University of Buckingham, and shortly after, obtained an MBA in advertising from the IMD Business School in Lausanne.
She inherited her father's 50.1 percent ownership in chemical and pharmaceutical company Altana after he died. She is a member of Altana's supervisory board and has assisted in the company's transformation into a world-class firm in the German DAX index of top 30 corporations.
So that concludes our list of the richest women in the world in 2021. Hope we helped jog your memory and that you’ll remember the names of some of the richest women on the planet just as effortlessly as Jeff Bezos or Steve Jobs!
