36 Self-Made Woman Billionaires · How They Made Their Billions

There are currently 36 Self-made Woman Billionaires in the world. This is a study of how these superwomen made their fortunes? I adopt the 6-W approach. (1) Why do we need to study Self-made billionaires? (2) Where do they come from? Which countries? Are there any immigrants? Are any of them from small towns? (3) Who are they? (4) How did they make their immense wealth? Which sector? (5) What did they study? What educational background do they have? Did they attend elite universities? (4) What kind of spousal support did they receive? What kind of family support did they receive? Do all of them get their start-up capital from venture capitalist or from Wall Street? (6) How many of them are married? What is their average age? What is their average number of children? What is their average number of divorce etc?

The biggest surprise I found is “You can have it all”. Besides the obvious wealth, this group of women is also relatively young, with an average age of 58 which is about 10 years younger than their male counterparts. To top it all, over 95% of them are married and over 90% have children, with average number of children 2.7. About one third of them (12 out of 36) are either (1) high school dropouts (2) high school graduate or (3) college dropouts. More than 90% of them have great success in both business and family. A few of them are household names, such as Oprah Winfrey and JK Rowling, most are little known even in their own countries.

This is the first of a series of book on self-made billionaires. We build museums to house famous artists. We adore great athletes in Olympics and Word Cup. We adore super-entertainers, and we create Nobel Prize for super-scientists and super-politicians. So, why not celebrate self-made billionaires too? Why not build a pantheon for self-made women billionaires?

There are two reasons why I chose woman group to start. The first reason is start-small, a valuable lesson I learned in the many start-up failures I have had. The woman group with only 36 members, allows me to start-small. I have a database of more than 1,000 self-made billionaires. If I include a few hundreds, I think I will bore most readers. The second reason is my Christian values, which lead me to begin my study with one of the most disadvantaged group.

In alphabetical order, the 36 Self-made Women Billionaires are:

1.Alakija, Folorunsho (Oil) from Nigeria

2.Aponte, Rafaella (Shipping) from Switzerland

3.Baturina, Elena (Construction) from Russia

4.Benetton, Giuliana (Fashion) from Italy

5.Blakely, Sarah (Fashion) from US

6.Burch, Tory (Fashion) from US

7.Chan, Laiwa (Real Estate) from China

8.Chang, Jin Sook (Fashion) from US

9.Chen, Ningning (Steel) from China

10.Cherng, Peggy (Fast Food) from US

11.Cheung, Yan (Waste Paper) from China

12.Chu Lam-Yiu (Fragrance) from China

13.Coates, Denise (Gambling) from UK

14.Cook, Gayle (Medical Equipment) from US

15.Dai, Weili (Semi-conductor) from US

16.Faulkner, Judy (Health IT) from US

17.Fisher, Doris (Fashion) from US

18.Hawken, Xiu Li (Real Estate) from China

19.He, Qiaonv (Landscape Architecture) from China

20.Hendricks, Diane (Roofing) from US

21.Holmes, Elizabeth (Blood Testing) from US

22.Ilitch, Marian (Fast Food) from US

23.Lei, Jufang (Traditional Medicine) from China

24.Liu, Xiaomeng (Electronic Retail) from China

25.Love, Judy (Truck Stop Convenience Store) from US

26.Mazumdar-Shaw, Kiran (Biotech) from India

27.Perkins. Mary (Eye Care) from UK

28.Resnick, Lynda (Agriculture) from US

29.Rowling, JK (Writer) from UK

30.Sandberg, Cheryl (Social Media) from US

31.Wang, Laichun (Outsourcing) from China

32.