"B" is for Billionaire

The third annual tally by Forbes Magazine  of America’s 60 most successful self-made women shows how women are continuing to create and chart their own paths to success and wealth.  It also shows the progress being made by female entrepreneurs and business leaders. The accumulated wealth of these 60 women reaches $61.5 B.  That is up 17% from $52.5 B last year.  Finally, it shows that the paths to wealth are as diverse as the women themselves.  It includes fortunes made in everything from makeup to music, to fashion and media, to biotechnology and aerospace, to food and finance.  

Forbes Magazine

The 2017 list has a new number one, two new billionaires (including Carolyn Rafaelian, founder of Alex and Ani) and five newcomers.  Last year’s list included 13 newcomers.  Many of these women were inspired to start companies when they saw a need for a product they wanted – including Spanx, Vera Bradley and IT Cosmetics.  

At the top of the list is Marian Ilitch, whose net worth of $5.1 billion makes her the richest self-made women. Ilitch co-founded Little Caesar's pizza with her husband in 1959.  Following her husband's death, she now owns the pizza chain with more than $4 billion in sales.  She also owns the Detroit Red Wings.

Who are the Newcomers?

Jessica Iclisoy grabbed the last spot on the 2017 list with a net worth of $260 million.  She is tied with real estate mogul Dottie Herman at No. 59, the minimum needed to make the 2017 list. (That is $10 million more than the $250 million minimum in 2016). Iclisoy launched California Baby in 1995. Today it sells $80 million worth of 90 nontoxic, organic baby care products at stores like Whole Foods and Target. Iclisoy never brought in outside investors and still owns 100% of the compan.  California Baby has its own manufacturing facility and Iclisoy grows some ingredients on her own farm.

Kendra Scott, CEO and founder of jewelry firm Kendra Scott Design, launched her jewelry collection in 2002.  She had just shut down her unprofitable hat shop in Austin, Texas, which she had started eight years earlier at 19. The hats didn't sell, but her bold handmade earrings and necklaces did.

In 15 years, Kendra Scott has grown her eponymous firm from a wholesale business run out of her spare bedroom to a chain of 60 stores, mostly in Texas, California and Florida.  With more than 2,000 employees, it had estimated 2016 revenues of $160 million.  In December 2016, Boston private equity firm Berkshire Partners acquired a minority stake in a deal that reportedly valued the company at $1 billion.  

Anne Dinning has helped run D.E. Shaw, one of the most successful quantitative hedge fund firms on Wall Street, for nearly two decades. She joined billionaire David Shaw's firm in 1990, after receiving her Ph.D. in computer science. She quickly rose through the ranks, overseeing much of the firm's hedge fund activities by 1995. She returned in 2002 following a brief retirement in 1999 and joined the executive committee.  After 15 years on the committee, Dinning moved into a senior leadership role as a managing director in 2017. During Dinning’s tenure, its assets under management have risen from under $5 billion to over $40 billion. 

There was one returnee to the 2017 list.  Martine Rothblatt, founder of Sirius Satellite Radio and biotech firm United Therapeutics, rejoined the list after a one-year absence.  Rothblatt, who underwent gender reassignment surgery in 1994, started United after her daughter Jenesis developed pulmonary arterial hypertension.  Rothblatt is the only transgender woman in the ranks.  

Worldwide Phenomenon

And the progress isn’t just a US phenomenon.  Forbes’ released its annual list of female billionaires worldwide in March.  The 2017 list includes more self-made women billionaires than any year before in the list's 30-year history. There's now a record 56 women who made their own 10-digit fortunes, and 15 of these entrepreneurs did so in the past year.  And unlike the combined (men and women) list of billionaires, the US doesn’t dominate this list.  While the U.S. the most billionaires overall, the most women entrepreneurs with a 10-digit fortune come from Asia, where there's 29 in all. The U.S. comes in second with 17 self-made women billionaires. About 67% of all self-made women billionaires in the world come from Asia or America.

Work Left to Do

Of the 374 Self-made billionaires in the US on Forbes’ 2017 list, 20% or 18 are women.  Interestingly that level seems to be a common plateau across areas of pursuit - it is also the percentage of women in Congress in 2017 (19.4%).  Seems it will take some work to breaking through that threshold.  It appears clear that entrepreneurship is the fastest way to wealth for American women.  Unlike their male counterparts, the vast majority of women on the list were founders of their businesses.  Only six made their fortunes within the structures of established companies and all of those were in disruptive financial services or technology companies, not in traditional industries (D.E. Shaw, Facebook, Oracle, eBay, Google and Yahoo).

Source: Forbes Magazine