With Mothers Day coming up thought this may be of interest for readers of Probate Attorney Blog. There are 70 Billionaire moms in the world although just 8 of them are self made billionaires with the rest having inherited the money. By contrast there are 555 self made billionaire fathers.
JK Rowlings who wrote the Harry Potter books was writing her first book at cafe's while supporting a child on welfare and has subsequently has earned billions from her books. Doris Fisher founded the Gap clothing company and Guiliana Benetton also founded a clothing company that went on to become a global brand and make her family billionaires. None of the 8 self made billionaire's are among the richest 10 moms though. They had inherited there money. The two wealthiest mom's are Christy Walton a 55 year old who is worth $22.5 Billion after her husband who was a son of the Walmart founder died when his private plane crashed. She has just one child. Lilianne Betttencourt who is a heiress to the L'Oreal cosmetics fortune is world's second richest mom at $20 Billion. She is from France and also has just one child.
A mom who has received some family money and also risen the corporate ladder through education and hard work is Abigail Johnson who did an MBA at Harvard. Her family runs Fidelity Mutual Fund the largest in the world which was founded by her grandfather. She was promoted to chair of fixed income and asset allocation funds last year and is believed to be her fathers chosen successor to run the company.
See Heather Struck Forbes Magazine article World's Richest Moms will appear in Forbes May 9 2010.