America’s Richest Self-Made Women Forbes’ Ranking Of The Country’s Most Successful Women Entrepreneurs, Executives And Entertainers

2024

America’s Richest Self-Made Women

Forbes’ Ranking Of The Country’s Most Successful Women Entrepreneurs, Executives And Entertainers

Edited by Kerry A. Dolan and Andrea Murphy

May 28, 2024

hero

Mary Callahan Erdoes, Fawn Weaver, Taylor Swift. Photos by Jamel Toppin for Forbes; Jamel Toppin for Forbes; Neilson Barnard/Getty Images

Presented by Richard Mille

Pizza. Packaging. Pop music. The country’s most successful women have found dozens of ways to prosper. It was a record-breaking year for these queens of capitalism, as their combined fortunes soared by nearly one-fourth, to $154 billion. There are now a record 31 self-made women billionaires, up from 24 a year ago. Among the 11 newcomers: singer Katy Perry and Uncle Nearest whiskey cofounder Fawn Weaver. The minimum to qualify rose to $300 million from $225 million last year, the highest since Forbes started tracking the top 100 in 2020.

Self-Made Women: 2024

Ranking the wealthiest 100

Overall

Newcomers

Source

Rank

Name

net worth

Source

Diane Hendricks

$20.9 B

Building supplies

Judy Love & family

$11.6 B

Gas stations

Judy Faulkner

$7.6 B

Healthcare software

Thai Lee

$6.8 B

IT provider

Elizabeth Uihlein

$6.7 B

Packaging materials

Lynda Resnick

$5.6 B

Agriculture

Marian Ilitch

$4.6 B

Little Caesars Pizza

Gail Miller

$4.4 B

Car dealerships

Johnelle Hunt

$4.3 B

Trucking

10.

Eren Ozmen

$3.7 B

Aerospace

11.

Jayshree Ullal

$3.6 B

Computer networking

12.

Meg Whitman

$3.4 B

EBay

13.

Peggy Cherng

$3.1 B

Fast food

14.

Oprah Winfrey

$3 B

TV shows

15.

Barbara Banke & family

$2.6 B

Wine

16.

Sheryl Sandberg

$2.1 B

Facebook

16.

Elaine Wynn

$2.1 B

Casinos, hotels

18.

Susan Ocampo & family

$2 B

Semiconductors

18.

Alice Schwartz

$2 B

Biotech

20.

Safra Catz

$1.9 B

Software

21.

Kim Kardashian

$1.7 B

Shapewear, skincare

22.

Doris Fisher

$1.5 B

Gap

23.

Rihanna

$1.4 B

Music, cosmetics

24.

Sara Blakely

$1.3 B

Spanx

24.

Weili Dai

$1.3 B

Semiconductors

Self-Made Women: 2024

Diane Hendricks

Net worth: $20.9billion

Source: Building Supplies

Number 1 richest for the seventh year in a row, Hendricks is worth a record $20.9 billion. She owns ABC Supply, the nation’s largest wholesale distributor of roofing supplies, which she cofounded it with her husband Kenneth (d. 2007) in 1982. Revenue has grown from $2.6 billion in 2007 to $20.4 billion in 2023.

Sheila Johnson

Net worth: $1 billion

Source: Cable TV, hotels

Johnson has officially become a billionaire, in part due to the rising value of her investments in the NBA’s Washington Wizards and NHL’s Washington Capitals. Johnson, who cofounded BET Networks with her ex-husband Robert Johson, published a memoir in September that detailed the loss of a child, abuse in her marriage and the racism she has endured.

Shuo Wang

Net worth: $850 million

Source: HR software

Wang is cofounder and chief revenue officer of HR software firm Deel. Less than five years after its founding, Deel surpassed $500 million in annual revenue this March. After moving from China to the U.S. at age 16, Wang went on to study robotics at MIT and cofounded air purification company Aeris before Deel.

Joan Payden

Net worth: $700 million

Source: Money management

Payden has led money management firm Payden & Rygel for more than four decades. She took the cash from her 401K retirement account to launch her own firm focused on fixed income and global markets in 1983. She remains the majority owner and CEO of the Los Angeles-based company, which has $162 billion in assets under management.

Lucy Guo

Net worth: $500 million

Source: Artificial Intelligence

Her firm Passes, a platform for creators raised $40 million in February. Most of her fortune lies in her nearly 6% stake of artificial intelligence firm Scale AI, which she cofounded in 2016. Scale AI was worth an estimated $7.3 billion as Forbes went to press. After our wealth measurement date, Scale raised $1 billion from investors at a $13.8 billion valuation.

Ruth Porat

Net worth: $460 million

Source: Google

Alphabet’s chief financial officer since 2015 got two additional job titles in September 2023: president and chief investment officer, which includes overseeing the funding for Alphabet’s “other bets.” She recently led the company’s $3 billion investment in expanding data centers in Virginia and Indiana.

Merrilee Kick

Net worth: $400 million

Source: Alcohol

Then a public high school teacher, Kick had the idea for what became BuzzBallz: fun, high-proof cocktails served in colorful plastic ball-shaped containers. First launched in 2009, sales took off at convenience stores, arenas and airlines. Drinks firm Sazerac, owned by billionaire William Goldring, acquired BuzzBallz in April, in a deal estimated to be worth a minimum of $500 million.

Katy Perry

Net worth: $350 million

Source: Music

Perry sold the rights to her songs in a September 2023 deal reportedly valued at $225 million. Since then she has announced her likely departure from TV singing competition American Idol after seven years and hinted that she is working on new music.

Mary Callahan Erdoes

100

Mary Callahan Erdoes

Net worth: $300 million

Source: Money management

One of the most powerful women on Wall Street, Erdoes is CEO of JP Morgan Chase’s $5 trillion asset and wealth management business, a job she’s held since 2009. Her stake in the firm is worth about $115 million.

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These Are The Richest Self-Made Women Under 40

Clif Bar Couple Donate A Third Of Their $1.6 Billion Fortune To Charity

How This Chinese Immigrant Became One Of America’s Most Successful Self-Made Women

How BuzzBallz Drinks Went From A Fun Side Hustle To $400 Million Fortune

Who Runs The World? Taylor Swift And Beyoncé Are Now Worth $2 Billion Combined

methodology

To compile net worths, we valued individual assets including stakes in public companies using stock prices from May 3, 2024. We valued private companies by consulting with outside experts and conservatively comparing them with public companies. To be eligible for the list, women have to have substantially made their own fortunes in the U.S. and/or be U.S. citizens or permanent residents. While none inherited their wealth, some climbed higher and overcame more obstacles to get into the ranks. To measure just how far some have come, women are given a selfmade score of 6 (hired hand) to 10 (rags-to-riches entrepreneur). We attempted to vet numbers with all list entrants. Some cooperated; others didn’t. Ages are as of May 28, 2024. For more information including details on the self-made scores, go to forbes.com/self-made-women.

acknowledgements

Dusty Baker, Sotheby’s International Realty; FactSet Research Systems; Akino Fukuda, Moody’s; Luminate; PitchBbook; Pollstar; Preqin; Dan Su, Morningstar; S&P Global; Staffing Industry Analysts; Jeffrey R. Ten, Global Indie Brand Development; Jeff Woolson, CBRE; Influential

credits

Editors: Kerry A. Dolan and Andrea Murphy

Reporters: Richard J. Chang, Grace Chung, Matt Craig, Matt Durot, Annika Grosser, Monica Hunter-Hart, John Hyatt, Katie Jennings, Alex Konrad, Alex Knapp, Luisa Kroll, Samantha Kroontje, Rob LaFranco, Phoebe Liu, Devin Martin, Jemima McEvoy, Maggie McGrath, Kyle Mullins, Chase Peterson-Withorn, Chloe Sorvino, Giacomo Tognini, Hank Tucker, Lisette Voytko, Will Yakowicz, Gigi Zamora, Justin Conklin

Editorial Operations: Justin Conklin, Francesca Walton

Database Managers: Dmitri Slavinsky, Ken Barney

Creative Director: Alicia Hallett-Chan

Director of Photography: Robyn Selman

Art Director: Fernando Capeto

Design: Cecilia Runxi Zhang, Philip Smith, Yunjia Yuan, Andres Jauregui, Aseel Fataftah

Photo: Gail Toivanen

Video Team: Kirsten Taggart, Ivan Clow, Lauren Rivera, Michael Swartz, Jon Palmer, Alexis Noriega, Greg Andersson, Brittany Lewis, Kristin Hunt, Simone Varano

Technical Project Manager: Dania Darwish

Engineering: Anas Roud, Diab Alsadi, Tay Buley, Mohammad Issa

Quality Assurance: Ani Danielyan, Ronak Ray

Product: Traci Kalamajka

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