5 Self-made Female Billionaires You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
Kylie Jenner and Sheryl Sandberg do have other company
Despite the controversy around her Forbes billionaire status, there’s no denying Kylie Jenner’s fame. With over 186 million Instagram followers, she reportedly gets paid one million dollars per sponsored post on the platform.
Also on the list of ultra-successful women with over $1 billion in net worth that you likely know is Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and author of best-selling books, Lean in and Option B.
But who are the other self-made women who’ve achieved this uber level of success with less lip service and visible social platforms?
Let’s take a look at five women who have less publicly paved their path to billionaire row, and see what they can teach us about leadership and success.
- Judy Faulkner
Judy Faulkner is the founder, and CEO of Epic Systems, a privately-held healthcare service provider that supplies medical software for many of the world’s hospitals.
She received a Master’s degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1979 and soon after went on to found Epic Systems, a company that now has an estimated annual revenue of $2.9B.
Her quirkiness is embodied in the aesthetic of her company’s campus, which contains “a human-size rabbit hole and an elevator to hell,” treehouses that act as conference rooms, and a lax dress code policy that states “just wear clothes.”
In addition to embracing her quirks, Faulkner embodies Midwestern values of fairness, kindness, and helpfulness. When asked about her leadership style in an interview with Becker’s Hospital Review, she went and asked a coworker to receive a more authentic response.
The coworker replied, “You treat people fairly, which is important to me. The other part is that you explain your reasoning, even if it’s been decided or was decided years ago, which allows me to not see you as a guru on the hill but as someone whose thinking I can understand, and it allows me to grow on my own rather than just getting the fish and walking away.”
Despite her riches, she lives rather frugally in the same subdivision for the last three decades and drives a 5-year-old Audi. It’s evident that what motivates her towards greatness goes far beyond financial as she has signed the Giving Pledge to give her wealth to non-profit foundations upon her death.
2. Zhou Qunfei
Zhou Quinfee earned her fortune as the CEO of Lens Technology, a glass manufacturer that sells its products to companies like Tesla, Apple, and Samsung.
Qunfei had a difficult upbringing, to say the least, with a nearly blind father and a mother who passed away when she was 5. At the age of 16, to provide for her family she dropped out of high school to work full-time as an assembly worker. She rose to the ranks despite all odds. Within 3 years, she got promoted and saved $3,000 so she could start her own glass manufacturing company. Her cousin described her as “a person who dares to do what others are afraid to do.”
In addition to her work ethic, she has an acute eye for spotting details and imperfections. A New York Times feature described that she had a small apartment attached to the manufacturing facility so she could “roam the floor day or night”.
During an interview, she told CNBC “Many people would experience a serious blow to [their] confidence when they encountered setbacks, but the key to success is to persevere, especially during the most difficult times.”
3. Jayshree Ullal
Jayshree Ullal worked her way through the tech world to eventually be named CEO and president of Arista Networks, a cloud networking company.
Ullal was born in London, raised in New Delhi and studied electrical engineering in the US. In her graduating class, she was only one of 2 women out of 70 that was female. After 6 years as CEO, she successfully led the company to IPO in 2014.
Jayshree is a visionary, with a no-excuses attitude. When asked about whether or not it was difficult to be a woman in her field by Hindu Business Line, she replied “not much” though admitted that balancing family and life was not easy.
In the same interview, she shared the 3 guiding principles she lives by:
- Follow your conviction, and find your special skill or gift
- Create your own career opportunities and turning points
- Value your human connections and create the right culture.
4. Safra Catz
Safra Catz is the CEO of a little company called Oracle. Originally born in Israel, her family moved to the US when she was 6. After receiving her law degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1986, she spent the next 13 years in investment banking before joining Oracle as a senior VP. Five years following that, she was named CEO.
She was credited for taking a significant role in driving the acquisition of Peoplesoft for $10.3B, Oracle’s largest rival at the time.
In addition to her role at the helm of the largest companies, she has taken an active seat in lobbying efforts, at one point considered for the U.S. Trade Representative or Director of National Intelligence by members of the Trump Administration.
Safra’s advice can best be seen as taking charge of your own success, stating “It is extremely easy to be lulled into inaction … Indecision really is your enemy. … If you want to beat the competition and you want to advance your career personally, you need to make decisions and take action. If you make decisions quickly, and you make a mistake, you may have a chance to fix it. [But] if you wait too long, the decision will make itself, and any change will be impossible.”
5. Thai Lee
Thai Lee is currently the CEO of SHI International, an IT solutions provider, with $11B in revenue.
She was born in Bangkok, Thailand but spent much of her childhood in different countries as her father was a prominent Korean economist. In her teens, she moved to the US, where she double-majored in biology and economics at Amherst College.
Upon graduation, she moved to Korea to begin working and save enough for an MBA. She graduated with an MBA from Harvard Business School and went on to work at Procter & Gamble and American Express.
With savings, she and her husband purchased a small software reseller for less than $1M, which would eventually become SHI International. Lee attributes a great deal of her success to deeply valuing her employees and obsessive over customer happiness. According to documents provided by her company, SHI has a 99% customer retention rate, and Thai lee’s direct reports have an average tenure of 18 years.
A long-standing customer of the company reiterated her people-first mentality, stating “She really empowers her employees and allows them the scope and the breadth to serve their customers well.”
I don’t believe success should be measured by wealth, but by what it means to be in the top of your field. And the women mentioned here have clearly reached the top of the business world.
But what’s more encouraging, is the values they demonstrate — authenticity, intelligent, boldness, teamwork, humility, confidence, and determination.
What I found particularly interesting is that none of them have publically mentioned their gender as a shortcoming to success. Rather, each has pushed past these stereotypes and despite all odds, harnessed their wit, work ethic, and relationships to reach a position of influence that hopefully will inspire future generations, irregardless of gender.