As we break halfway through 2025, it becomes simply undeniable in light of multiple reports being published on the subject by McKinsey, among many other groups, that women are leading the entrepreneurial sector like never before. As per the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, presently, there are more than 658 million active female founders and business owners across the globe.
The country with the highest number of individuals featured in the list’s top 50 happens to be China. The youngest to be featured on the list is Australia’s 38-year-old billionaire Melanie Perkins, who is renowned for co-founding Canva, one of the most popular design software companies, particularly among millennials and Gen Z, back in 2013. The list also places two of India’s most prominent women founders, Nykaa’s Falguni Nayar and Biocon’s Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, among the 50 wealthiest self-made women in the world.
Here are the top 10 self-made women billionaires as featured on Forbes:
1. Rafaela Aponte-Diamant
Forbes’ 2025 list is topped by Rafaela Aponte-Diamant, co-founder of the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) that boasts a net worth of $38.8 billion. The company as of now now holds the world’s largest shipping line.
2. Diane Hendricks
Diamant is followed by Diane Hendricks from the United States of America, who co-founded ABC Supply, a major distributor of roofing and building materials, with an estimated net worth of $22.3 billion.
3. Zhong Huijuan
Leading the line of the most affluent self-made Chinese woman billionaires is Zhong Huijuan, a former chemistry teacher who founded Hansoh Pharmaceuticals in 1995. In 1999, Zhong achieved global recognition for the development of a groundbreaking lung cancer drug.
4. Zhou Qunfei
Zhou Qunfei, a prominent Chinese entrepreneur, founded Lens Technology in 1992. Lens is a major supplier of touchscreens to electronic companies, including Apple, Samsung and Microsoft. A former migrant watch factory worker holds an estimated net worth of $22.3 billion.
5. Denise Coates
Co‑founder and joint CEO of Bet365, one of the largest online gambling platforms globally, headquartered in Stoke‑on‑Trent. At 57, with a net worth of approximately $8.7 billion, Denise Coates stands as one of the UK’s richest and most influential self‑made women.
6. Judy Faulkner
Founder of Epic Systems, a leading healthcare software company that manages the medical records of over 305 million patients worldwide. Judy boasts a net worth of $7.8B, making her the second richest self-made woman billionaire in the US.
7. Wang Laichun
Co-founder and chairperson of Luxshare-ICT, Wang Laichun, boasts a net worth of $7.2B. A prominent Chinese billionaire businesswoman who rose from working on factory floors at Foxconn to form one of the leading global electronics manufacturing companies in 2004.
8. Marian Ilitch
Born to Macedonian immigrants in the US, Marian Illitch co-founded Little Caesars Pizza, a monstrous global good franchise that records $5 billion in annual systemwide sales. Famous acquirer of multiple Detroit sports teams, Marian boasts a net worth of $6.9B.
9. Ling Tang
The only Canadian to feature in the top 10, Ling is a pre-IPO investor in AppLovin, a marketing software and mobile game maker that went public at a $25 billion valuation in 2021 and has tripled it’s market size since going public. Ling holds a net worth of $6.6B.
10. Lynda Resnick
Renowned philanthropist, child actress Lynda is the co-owner and vice-chair of The Wonderful Company, a holding company for brands like POM Wonderful and Fiji Water. Under Resnick’s marketing leadership, Fiji Water became the largest imported bottled water brand in the U.S. Lynda boasts a net worth of $6.3B
The richest self-made women in India 2025
Former investment banker, Falguni Nayar, with an estimated net worth of $3.4B tops the list representing Indian women. Nayar founded Nykaa, a global giant retailer of beauty products, in 2012. Ranked 31st in the Forbes list of the richest self-made women in the world in 2025, Nayar took Nykaa public in 2021, which made her India’s richest self-made female entrepreneur in the process.
Nayar is closely followed by yet another Indian, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, who ranks 32nd in the list. Kiran, who founded one of India’s biggest biopharmaceutical firms, Biocon, in 1978, restraints a massive net worth of $3.3B.Her company, Biocoin, works towards manufacturing affordable, high-quality medicines and biopharmaceutical products, particularly for chronic conditions.