Top 11 Youngest Female Billionaires in the World

We present you the youngest female billionaires in the world, women who have made it in the male-dominated world of billionaires. Only one percent of global wealth is in hands of women, so it is not a surprise that on the Forbes list of world`s billionaire there are only 197 women. The richest women in the world, Christy Walton, occupies the eight place with 41.7 billion.

The fact that women hold only 11 percent of all places on the Forbes list is the reflection of laws that govern the global distribution of wealth between two genders. If we compare the wealthiest man in the world Bill Gates (net worth 79,2 billion) and Christy Walton (net worth 41.7 billion), we notice two major differences. First, the money gap between these two billionaires is obvious. Although it can be explained by the fact that two of them work in completely different industries, it also reminds us of gender income gap. In the USA, the income gap is 21 percent and at the current rate, it won’t close for more than 100 years. Moreover, as entrepreneurs women earn far less than man (one of the most extreme examples is Bangladesh, where women earn 12 cents in relative to every dollar for men, according to World Bank), numerous studies have emphasized a few differences in a way women and men run businesses. For instance, Women Entrepreneurship, shows that women accounted for only 29 percent of the 40.6 million entrepreneurs in the EU in 2012. Compared to men, women entrepreneurs operate in smaller businesses and work in sectors that are less profitable. They are also far less prone to take risks which is why they usually start off with less capital, borrow less and use family money rather than debt or equity finance. If you check our list of Top 10 Countries with the Most Billionaires per Capita, you will find few states which can boast about their gender policies.

Secondly, while Gates made his fortune, Christy Walton inherited a large portion of her wealth when her husband John Walton died in plane crash in 2005. As a matter of fact, you will soon see that only one woman on our list is a self-made billionaire, while others became rich thanks to inheritance. On the other side, on the list of youngest male billionaire we will find a few men who made their wealth independently.

Finally, there is one thing that Bill Gates and Christy Walton has in common. They are both philanthropist – Gates, through his Foundation, among other things focuses on eradicating malaria while Christy Walton is ranked as the highest female philanthropist.

Now we present you our list of Top 11 Youngest Female Billionaires in the World which we made using Forbes list of world’s billionaires.

11. Isabel dos Santos (42)

Net worth: 3.3 billion

Place on Forbes billionaire list: 534

Isabel dos Santos is the richest person in Angola and one of the 10 wealthiest people in Africa. She is a daughter of Angola’s president José Eduardo dos Santos who has been leading the country since 1976. Jose Eduardo dos Santos’s regime has been accused of many corruptive affairs, because the president has been controlling several companies and natural resources industries since he was elected. According to Forbes, although Isabel’s representatives deny that her holdings have any connection with her father, President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, transferred stakes in several Angolan companies to her.

Isabel dos Santos’s business career started in 1997 when she opened Miami Beach Club in Luanda. Today she is the main shareholder of Nos SGPS, Portuguese media holding company. She also has shares in Angolan state oil company Sonangol and in Banco BPI, Portuguese fourth-largest bank.

Isabel dos Santos graduated from King’s College in London. She is married to Sindika Dokolo, Congolese art collector and son of a millionaire. The couple has three children and lives in Luanda.

10. Serra Sabanci (40)

Net worth: 1 billion

Place on Forbes billionaire list: 1741

Serra Sabanci, together with her family, controls Sabancı Holding, Turkey’s leading industrial and financial conglomerate. Sabancı Holding controls 70 companies in different industries and employs 65,000 people in 15 countries. Her father Özdemir Sabancı was killed by assassins hired by the leftist armed group DHKP-C in 1996.

Serra Sabanci is a board member of Sabanci Holding and one of the company’s major shareholders. She is also a member of the Sabancı Foundation Board, which runs more than 120 health, educational and cultural centers in Turkey.

Serra Sabanci graduated from the University of Portsmouth and Istanbul Bilgi University. She lives in Istanbul.

9. Miriam Blocher (40)

Net worth: 1.3 billion

Place on Forbes billionaire list: 1415

Miriam Blocher is a daughter of Christoph Blocher, head of the rightwing Swiss People’s Party, who has sparked a lot of controversies. Among many things, he financially supported a referendum on restricting entrance to immigrants into Switzerland. Until 2004, Christoph Blocher led Ems Group, Swiss manufacturer and supplier of polymers that has 26 production sites in 16 different countries. When he became the member of the Swiss government, he left the company selling his stock evenly to his four children. Miriam sold shares to her sisters. Since 2007, she owns Läckerli-Huus, a Swiss confectionary and baked goods company.

In one interview, she said that she would never consider being politically active. As she explained, watching her father political engagement reinforced her opinion that political career was not for her.

She is lives in Rheinfelden in Switzerland.

8. Rahel Blocher (39)

Net worth: 3.5 billion

Place on Forbes billionaire list: 497

The second daughter of Christoph Blocher on this list, Rahel Blocher, didn’t sell her shares in Ems Group, and together with sister Magdalena, she is a major shareholder of Ems Group. Rahel Blocher was involved in one of her father’s controversial ventures in 2011, when Christoph Blocher was accused of buying Basel daily. He denied that he bought the newspaper, but it turned out that his daughter Rahel signed the papers.

Rahel is the only member of the board of Robinvest, headed by her father. She lives in Wilen bei Wollerau in Switzerland.

7. Yvonne Bauer (38)

Net worth: 2.8 B

Place on Forbes billionaire list: 663

Yvonne Bauer, together with her family, runs Bauer Media Group, largest media publishing company in Europe, which manages more than 600 magazines, over 400 digital products and 50 radio and TV stations around the world, including Bella, Take a Break, That’s life! TVChoice and Total TVGuide, Grazia, the Box TV, Q… Since 2010 she owns 85 percent of the company.

Despite global changes in media, she says that Bauer believes in print. “Well-made magazines will always find their readers…. So we are investing in print because it pays off – also with regard to digitalization. Strong media brands are the currency we can use to thrive in the digital world. Print and digital offerings profit from each other’s media strengths and are interconnected”, Bauer said.

Yvonne Bauer lives in Hamburg.

6. Charlotte Soderstrom (38)

Net worth: 3 billion

Place on Forbes billionaire list: 603

Charlotte Soderstrom holds sixth place on the list Top 11 Youngest Female Billionaires in the World. Charlotte Söderström is a daughter of Stefan Persson, the richest billionaire in Sweden and chairman and main shareholder in fashion company H&M. Her grandfather Erling Persson founded the company in 1947 with the aim of providing attractive clothes for women at affordable price. At first, company, whose name was “Hennes”, in Swedish “for her”, sold only women clothes. Twenty years later it started selling menswear and it changed its name to “Hennes & Mauritz” (H&M). Today H&M has stores on all continents.

Charlotte Söderström lives in Stockholm with her husband and three children.

5. Julia Oetker (36)

Net worth: 1.3 billion

Place on the Forbes billionaire list: 1415

Julia Oetker is one of the heiresses of Rudolf August Oetker, the man who built multi-million Dr. Oetker’s empire between 1944 and 1980, which today produces 400 products, including pudding, baking powder, cake mixes, and yogurts, and employs 26 000 people. Rudolf was SS officer and Oetker Company supplied German soldiers with dry good during the war. After his death, each of his successors inherited 12.5 percent of Bielefeld-based Dr. August Oetker KG.

Julia Oetker got married to Italian count José Antonio Sigurtà in 2011, but, according to German tabloids, they separated a year ago.

4. Marie Besnier Beauvalot (35)

Net worth: 2.5 billion

Place on Forbes billionaire list: 737

Youngest female billionaire in France Marie Besnier Beauvalot, together with her three brothers, inherited Lactalis in 2000. Lactalis is the largest dairy products group in the world, and it is the second largest food products group in France. It was founded by Marie’s grandfather André Besnier who started a small cheese-making company in 1933.

Marie Besnier Beauvalot is married and lives in France together with her husband.

3. Yang Huiyan (34)

Net worth: 5.2 billion

Place on Forbes billionaire list: 309

Yang Huiyan is a daughter of Yeung Kwok Keung, the founder of real estate developer Country Garden Holdings. In 2007, Yeung Kwok Keung transferred 70 percent of his company shares to his daughter, thus making her one of the wealthiest women in Asia.

The year 2008 was tough for Yang Huiyan. When China’s stock markets plummeted she lost more than two-thirds of her fortune – her wealth went from £8 to below £3 billion. However, as we can see, she has managed to recover.

Yang graduated from Ohio State University in 2003, and she got married in 2007. She lives in Foshan in Chine.

2. Tatiana Casiraghi (31)

Net worth: 2.5 billion

Place on Forbes billionaire: 847

Tatiana Casiraghi inherited a lot of money from her grandfather Julio Mario Santo Domingo, who owned Colombian brewery Bavaria. In 2012, she got married to Andrea Casiraghi, who is the eldest grandchild of Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, and Grace Kelly, and fourth in the line of succession to the Monegasque throne.

In 2011, Tatiana, together with Dana Alikhani, lunched Muzungu Sisters, a global online retail market which has two aims – to promote handmade products of local artisans from around the world and thus support ethical business practices. Muzungu in Swahili means “wanderer” or “traveler”.

Tatiana was born in New York and she grew up in Paris and Switzerland. She received BA in visual communications from American University in London and she currently lives with her husband and daughter in Monaco.

1. Elizabeth Holms (31)

Net worth 4.5 billion

Place on Forbes billionaire list 360

Elizabeth Holms is the first on our list Top 11 Youngest Female Billionaires in the World. She is also first America’s self-made women and only person on this list who managed to accumulate wealth without outside help.

After dropping out form Stanford as a sophomore, Holms founded Theranos with her tuition money. The company introduced a new method of blood testing which requires only a drop of blood for multiple tests. The new procedure significantly reduces testing costs. On TED blog Elizabeth Holms wrote that mission of Theranos is to help people to fulfill their basic human right – right to protect their health.

“In the United States today, healthcare is the leading cause of bankruptcy. Similarly, lack of healthcare is the leading cause of the suffering associated with finding out too late in the disease progression process that someone you love is really, really sick”, Holms wrote. In her words, Theranos method will allow people to get “accurate, affordable, real-time health information”.

Elizabeth Holms lives in Palo Alto.