Name: Anne Cox Chambers

Age: 88, born December 1st, 1919

Citizen of: The United States of America, born in Dayton, Ohio

Marital Status: Divorced and Remarried, with two daughters and one son

Source of Wealth: Inherited from her stake in Cox Enterprises

What makes her special: She is the second richest woman in the United States. In 2007, Forbes estimated her net wealth to be $14.6 billion.

Rank on BillionaireWoman.com: #3rd of many billionaire women to be studied.

Her past: Anne Cox Chambers graduated from Finch College in New York City after attending Miss Porter’s School. She showed her passion for democratic leadership by knocking on doors to get democratic support from the people in Ohio in her youth. She was chosen as the US Ambassador to Belgium by former President Jimmy Carter. She held the title of US Ambassador to Belgium from 1977 to 1981. Since then she has held many titles and furthered her business and philanthropic aspirations. She sat on the board of directors for Coca-Cola from 1981-1991. She was the first woman to sit on the board of directors at a bank in Atlanta, the Fulton National Bank, and was also the first woman on the board of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. Anne Cox Chambers donated generously to the arts and to international affairs, notably to museums and supporting presidential campaigns of John Kerry and Barack Obama. She received many honorary degrees from academic institutions to recognize the contributions she has made to the various institutions she gifted.

What the future holds: She still holds the title of Director for Cox Enterprises. Her sister Barbara’s son James Cox Kennedy currently runs the family business as its CEO. She currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia. She will continue her current operations and continue to give generously to the various philanthropic endeavors that she believes in. She still holds many positions as a board of directors member for different organizations. She is currently a supporter of Barack Obama for president and will continue to support the democratic party in America.

What we can learn from her: Anne Cox Chambers has had a rich and fulfilling life. She gave of her time and her abilities in her various positions as ambassador, member of the board and while running her media empire Cox Enterprises. She also donated much of her wealth to furthering the arts and international affairs. It is obvious that Ms. Cox Chambers is a passionate woman who stopped at nothing to better the world. We can learn to be philanthropic givers, like she is, and to pursuing different opportunities in volunteer work and memberships. It is also interesting to note that Anne Cox Chambers was interested in politics throughout her life and I believe that we could all benefit from learning more and taking charge of the political changes happening in our nation today.

Thank you Anne Cox Chambers for your inspiration to women everywhere.

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If anyone knows me personally, they will know that I have a thing for China. That’s right, I have been slightly obsessed with everything Chinese ever since high school. It all started with my love of Japanese animation, and then moved onto a great appreciation of all Asian cultures. In high school I had many Chinese and Korean friends and I started down my new liking for this way of thinking. In the past three years my love for China has only grown as I’ve started dating my wonderful boyfriend, who happens to be Chinese. From him I learned so many things about China, the culture and yes the language too. I am also currently taking some second level Mandarin classes. But there’s another thing that has caught my attention about China: the growing number of billionaires and the fact that the billionaire list is topped by two women.

Photo by: Alejandra Garcia
According to the Hurun rich list, the two top billionaires in China are women. Not only that but the number of billionaires in China has grown from 15 in 2006 to 106 this year! Simply put, this is astounding. I should also mention that these Chinese are billionaires in US dollars, not in the local currency, which means they are competing with the big boys like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. This new statistic might be frightening to some, since China is now the country with the most billionaires second only to the United States. Some of the explanations for this tremendous growth include the fact that the Chinese economy has been growing despite the mortgage crunch in the United States. I think China is a great example of harnessing personal power and making a huge impact on your audience and the world. Now let’s take a look at the top billionaires in China, who just so happen to be female and one of them is also a self made billionaire woman.

Yan Huiyan

The richest woman in China is Yan Huiyan. She came from a poor background in the rural areas of China and made her wealth by purchasing inexpensive land in the south of China and reselling later. You can say she built her fortune selling real estate in a country that did not work on the real estate model the way the United States did. She holds over 59% of the company (Country Garden) shares, since her father at age 52 transfered his shares over to her. At only 26 years old as of this writing, this is an astounding revelation. Not only is Yan Huiyan the richest woman in China she is also one of the richest women in Asia, with a personal fortune of $17.5 US billion dollars. Although not much is known about Yan Huiyan due to her recent rush of wealth through the company’s success and her father’s share, one thing is for sure - we must keep our eyes on her. I will certainly be observing her further in the coming months as her story is unveiled.

Zhang Yin

The second richest woman in China, Zhang Yin, also a billionaire, made her fortune helping the planet. Zhang Yin was the richest person in China as of last year and I remember reading about her then and thinking how cool this woman really was. At 50 years of age, Zhang Yin proves that age is no obstacle when you have a dream, a vision and a little bit of fire in your belly to take action on it. Zhang Yin’s company Nine Dragon Paper is a paper recycling company that she started back in the 1980s. She now owns over 70% of the shares together with her husband and her brother. Zhang Yin is the richest self made woman in the world and her personal wealth is evaluated at $10 billion dollars. I really look up to Zhang Yin because of her ideals and the fact that she never let anything stop her from achieving her dream. She also takes the environment to heart and has not made her fortune by deforesting the planet or polluting our ecosystems: no she is doing quite the opposite by restoring our beautiful world.

Summary

So if you are still wondering exactly why I love the Chinese culture so much, or why I toil away at my Chinese character writing… it’s because of these great Chinese women and role models. My Chinese teacher, also a great woman, has taught me much about the Chinese way of life and I hope to fully incorporate these ideals into my daily life. I also believe that balance and the concept of the yin and the yang is extremely relevant when it comes to creating personal wealth. It is only when we can find true balance within ourselves that we can create the visions we dream of. I also think that these women have shown us that family is an important aspect of building a personal fortune.

As Chris Howard always said: “It takes teamwork to make the dream work.”

So here as we can see, it takes family to support you in your endeavors. It will pay off! You need to persevere, surround yourself with loving and supporting people (like family) and then get ready to watch your wealth soar. Zaijian - see you later!

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Name: Liliane Bettencourt

Age: 86, born October 21, 1922

Citizen of: France, living in Paris, France

Marital Status: Widowed, with 1 child

Source of Wealth: Inherited from her father Eugene Schueller, the founder of L’Oreal cosmetics company.

What makes her special: She is the richest woman in France, and one of the richest people in the world. In 2007, Forbes estimated her net wealth to be $20.7 billion.

Rank on BillionaireWoman.com: #1st of many billionaire women to be studied.

Liliane Bettencourt’s Past
Liliane Bettencourt’s past was kept quite private, but I was able to uncover some interesting articles about her husband, Andre Bettencourt who passed away in 2007. According to the Telegraph, Andre Bettencourt’s past associations with anti-semitic groups have been resurfacing since his death. He seems to have been intertwined with the L’Oreal fortune since his youth, where he was part of the group La Cagoule, which was bankrolled by Eugene Schueller, Liliane’s father. He then went on to marry Liliane in 1950, making him one of the richest men in France. He and Liliane had a daughter together, who is now a member of the board of directors for the L’Oreal company. Liliane inherited her father’s wealth after his death in 1957. She is the principal shareholder of the L’Oreal company, with 27.5% of shares. Although her husband and father seem to have had checkered pasts, no such thing can be said of Liliane. In fact, to the contrary, Liliane created the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation, which awards a prize to European researchers under the age of forty-five - the “Liliane Bettencourt Prize for Life Sciences.” This is another great example of how women can turn wealth into positive outcomes for others in their community.

What the future holds

Liliane Bettencourt’s life has always been kept under wraps. But what seems interesting to me is the fact that L’Oreal is now a global company, that still trades out of Paris only. In fact Liliane has been resisting any changes to the way that the company is being managed. However some spokespeople close to the company are saying that changes are inevitable. Personally, I am quite interested in knowing what Liliane’s daughter would think about a change to the company’s holding structure, since that would impact her inheritance as well. Only time will tell.

What we can learn from her

Liliane Bettencourt inherited a large sum of money, and learned to harness it and make it work for her and her fellow Europeans. An article in The Guardian describes her as one of the great stereotypical female leaders of the matriarch type. The article goes on to describe how Liliane may have inherited her wealth, but so have countless women throughout the ages, and this fact has generally created strong and decisive women leaders. Therefore I think it is important to remember that even though women like Liliane were not “self made billionaires” overnight, they did need to cultivate their own financial prowess to survive in a tough high stakes world. So just as women who were born into royal families had to learn the skills of negotiation, political savvy, and street smarts, so do women who inherit large sums of money. I think that as women who have not inherited billions, we can learn to be more like Liliane by honing our matriarchal skills and helping others around us. We can teach those of us who are younger and encourage others to reach for their full potentials, while still keeping control of our own power and respectability. I do believe that this is something every woman needs to work on, since it is obviously not an easy task.

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