Top Richest Self-Made Women in 2023
Meet the self-made women of Forbes’ 2023 list, a powerhouse who built their own businesses and became the richest women in the process.
They are leaders in many different jobs, and they are very wealthy. They are like role models for future generations.
Let’s see who made it to the list!
The List of Top Self-Made Women
1. Diane Hendricks – $15 Billion
Diane Hendricks chairs ABC Supply, one of America’s largest wholesale distributors of roofing, siding, and windows. She co-founded the company with her late husband, Ken, in Beloit, Wisconsin, in 1982. Since Ken’s death in 2007, Diane has been in charge.
Under her leadership, ABC Supply bought Bradco in 2010 and L&W Supply in 2016. The company now operates over 900 branches and reported $18.5 billion in revenue for 2022.
2. Judy Love & Family – $10.2 Billion
Following Diane is Judy Love from Oklahoma, she and her husband Tom started a truck stop and convenience store business called Love’s in 1964. It’s a family business now, with their four children involved.
They even borrowed just $5,000 to get started! Judy helped run things until the 1970s, and today Love’s has grown to over 640 stores across the US, making a whole lot of money!
3. Judy Faulkner – $7.4 Billion
Judy Faulkner is the boss of a giant company called Epic Systems. Epic makes software that doctors use to keep track of patient’s medical information.
Judy started Epic in her basement in Wisconsin in 1979 with just $70,000! Today, Epic is a multi-billion dollar company used by many famous hospitals! Judy is super generous and plans to give away most of her money to charity.
4. Lynda Resnick – $5.3 Billion
California’s Lynda Resnick is worth $5.3 billion. Lynda Resnick and her husband Stewart are super rich farmers in California and Texas. They own a giant farming company called Wonderful Company that grows things like nuts, oranges, and grapefruits.
Lynda started out young, opening her own advertising business after leaving college. She met Stewart when he needed help advertising his alarm company. Now they run Wonderful together and are super generous, giving away billions of dollars to charity, even to help fight climate change!
5. Thai Lee – $4.8 Billion
Texas-based Thai Lee is the boss (CEO) of a big tech company called SHI International. They sell computers and other tech stuff to companies like Boeing and AT&T. She’s a very accomplished woman – she went to fancy schools and worked at big companies before starting her own.
Thai Lee started SHI with her ex-husband for less than $1 million! Now it’s a multi-billion dollar company and she owns most of it.
6. Johnelle Hunt – $4.4 Billion
Johnelle and her husband J.B. started a business together in 1961. They sold their house and borrowed money to package rice hulls. Eight years later, they took a big chance and used their savings to buy trucks and trailers.
Even though Johnelle isn’t directly involved in the company anymore, she still owns a big chunk of it. She’s also very generous and donated millions of dollars to a center named after her and her husband.
7. Gail Miller – $4.2 Billion
Gail Miller runs a big company called Larry H. Miller Group, which owns things like car dealerships, movie theaters, and even a sports team! She and her husband started with just one car dealership and grew it into a giant company.
Gail also owned the Utah Jazz basketball team for a while, but they sold it too. Now she’s trying to bring a baseball team to Salt Lake City.
8. Marian Ilitch – $4 Billion
Marian Ilitch, also called Mrs. I, is the boss of Little Caesars Pizza, a super successful pizza chain that makes billions of dollars every year! She’s also a big sports fan and owns the Detroit Red Wings hockey team and has a stake in the Detroit Tigers baseball team.
Marian is even helping build a giant sports complex in Detroit, complete with a cool pizza-shaped office! Back in the day, she had to stop her husband from giving away too much free pizza!
9. Elizabeth Uihlein – $3.7 Billion
Elizabeth Uihlein is the president of Uline, the largest distributor of shipping, packaging, and industrial supplies in North America. Uline, based in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, earns about $8 billion annually by selling over 42,000 products through its extensive catalog.
Elizabeth and her husband, Richard, started Uline in their basement in 1980, and it now employs 8,500 people. Over the years, the couple has donated around $280 million to support conservative candidates, making them top political donors in the U.S.
10. Peggy Cherng – $3.1 Billion
Peggy Cherng is the co-founder and co-CEO of Panda Express, a Chinese fast-food chain with estimated sales of $5.4 billion and around 2,400 locations. Born in Myanmar, she earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering in the U.S. and worked for 3M and McDonnell Douglas, designing battlefield simulators for the U.S. Navy.
In 1983, she left her engineering career to help her husband, Andrew Cherng, open the first Panda Express in a Glendale, California shopping mall. In 2018, the Cherngs invested $214 million in a group that bought the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Las Vegas, now the Waldorf Astoria.
11. Meg Whitman – $3 Billion
Meg Whitman is renowned for growing eBay’s sales from $5.7 million to $8 billion as CEO from 1998 to 2008. She is currently the U.S. ambassador to Kenya, confirmed by the Senate in July 2022. Whitman was the CEO of Hewlett-Packard from 2011 to 2015, during which she oversaw its split into HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
She stepped down as HPE’s CEO in February 2018. Before becoming an ambassador, she served on the boards of Procter & Gamble and General Motors. Whitman was also the CEO of the short-lived video platform Quibi, which closed in October 2020, just seven months after its launch.
12. Eren Ozmen – $2.8 Billion
Eren Ozmen is the boss of a space company called Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC). They made a space plane named Dream Chaser that will fly to the space station. In 2021, SNC created a new company, Sierra Space, to focus on space travel for businesses.
Sierra Space is doing well and will launch its first Dream Chaser in 2024. Eren and her husband Fatih started SNC a long time ago when it was very small.
13. Oprah Winfrey – $2.5 Billion
Oprah Winfrey, the iconic talk show host we all know, turned her hugely popular show (which ran for 25 years!) into a springboard for a massive media empire. The profits from the show, along with her earnings from movies she helped produce, snowballed into a cool $2.5 billion!
Oprah didn’t stop there. In 2011, she launched her own cable channel, OWN. While she later sold most of it, she still owns a piece of the company. She’s also a very generous person.
In fact, she recently donated a valuable stake in a weight loss company to a famous museum celebrating African American history!
14. Doris Fisher – $2.3 Billion
Doris Fisher, alongside her husband Donald, co-founded the Gap clothing empire in 1969. Their journey began with a simple desire for good-fitting jeans. A Stanford graduate with an economics degree (one of the first women to achieve that at the time!), Doris served as the Gap’s mastermind for merchandising until 2003.
The Gap flourished under her keen eye, becoming a global brand with billions in revenue. Beyond fashion, Doris is a passionate art collector, and she and her husband amassed a valuable collection that has been loaned to museums. She’s also known for her philanthropic efforts and her commitment to social causes.
15. Jayshree Ullal – $2.2 Billion
Jayshree Ullal is the head honcho (CEO) of a successful computer networking company called Arista Networks. She’s been running the show since 2008 and Arista has grown to be a big company, making nearly $5.9 billion in 2023.
Ullal is also on the board of directors for another tech company, Snowflake, which deals with cloud computing. On top of that, she owns a chunk of Arista (about 3%) and is planning to share some of it with her family.
The 2023 Forbes list of the top self-made women underscores not only the financial success these leaders have achieved but also their diverse contributions across different sectors. In addition, Each self-made woman on this list exemplifies unique business strategies and innovations that
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