With International Women’s Day around the corner, DKODING Media curates a special edition recognizing fiery young self-made women. The combined net worth of these 11 self-made women millionaires (& billionaires) who inspire million amounts to US $6.5 Billion.
More often than not the path to success is long and tiresome but these young women have turntables for themselves to outshine their male counterparts in the industry. Whether it is taking over the family business or creating a multi-million dollar business empire from the ground up, women are taking the center stage in business. The youngest self-made millionaires (& billionaires) list is increasingly being filled with women. Very few paths are left unexplored by these top young self-made women millionaires in the world of 2021.
The World’s Top 11 Youngest Self-Made Women Millionaires in 2021
1/11
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Age: 31
Profession: Entrepreneur
Net Worth: $1.5 Billion
With more than a billion-dollar net worth, Whitney Wolfe Herd is a thirty-one-year-old American entrepreneur, who founded the Bumble dating app in 2014. Herd also became the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire after Bumble went public. She has proved with a billion-dollar business empire that anyone can successfully start a side hustle and grow it into a thriving business.
Watch: Whitney Wolfe Herd’s Story of Bumble
Whitney Wolfe Herd Biography
- Full Name: Whitney Wolfe Herd
- Date of Birth: 1 July 1989
- Education: Southern Methodist University
- Claim to Fame: Founder of Bumble
What’s with Whitney Wolfe Herd real estate deal?
Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd has listed a property for $28.5 million in Austin. There’s an entertainment cabana, 10 garages, boat docks, a wine room, tennis courts, putting green, pool, spa, and much more. And of course, in true Texan fashion, there are H monograms all over the place.
2/11
Rihanna
Age: 33
Profession: Singer, Businesswoman
Net Worth: $600 Million
Robyn Rihanna Fenty is a singer and a businesswoman from Barbados with a net worth of more than $600 million. Rihanna is the owner of a business empire that mainly deals with beauty, makeup, and luxury goods. With millions of net worth, Rihanna has donated generously for various causes like abuse victims, New York’s needy, Clara Lionel Foundation, and coronavirus relief.
Watch: Rihanna’s Clara Lionel Foundation seeks to improve lives
Rihanna Biography
- Full Name: Robyn Rihanna Fenty
- Date of Birth: 20 February 1988
- Education: Combermere School
- Claim to Fame: Singer, Founder, Clara Lionel Foundation, Fenty Beauty
- Years active: 2003–present
What is the Savage X Fenty fashion show controversy that landed Rihanna in trouble?
Rihanna had to issue an apology to the Muslim community for a song with Islamic verse at Fenty lingerie show. The song featured hijabi women and sacred Islamic text read aloud, which Rihanna said was a “huge oversight that was unintentionally offensive.”
3/11
Neha Narkhede
Age: 36
Profession: Entrepreneur
Net Worth: $600 Million
Neha Narkhede, at thirty-six, is the former chief technology officer and co-founder of Confluent, a data technology company. Narkhede worked with LinkedIn as a software engineer and later found Confluent with two other colleagues from LinkedIn. Confluent raised $250 million in April 2020, concluding its total funding to more than $450 million.
Watch: Neha Narkhede advice on powering women in tech
Neha Narkhede Biography
- Full Name: Neha Narkhede
- Date of Birth: 12 September 1985
- Education: Georgia Tech, University of Pune
- Claim to Fame: Co-founder, Confluent Inc., Co-creator Apache Kafka
How Neha Narkhede owes a big chunk of her success to her Dad?
The 35-year-old owes some of her success to her dad, she tells: “When I was growing up, he selected books and told me stories of women who were trailblazers in very male-dominated fields. Narkhede didn’t realize it at the time, but discussing their stories “cultivated a sense of empowerment in me,” she says.
4/11
Karissa Bodnar
Age: 32
Profession: Entrepreneur
Net Worth: $370 Million
Aged thirty-one, Karissa Bodnar, is the founder of a vegan cosmetic brand, that was launched in 2015. Bodnar’s net worth is more than four hundred million dollars. Thrive Causemetics offers cosmetic products that can be used by people with a compromised immunity problem. Bodnar worked at L’Oreal previously as a product manager. Bodnar is known to have created the “lip mate formula” in her kitchen over a weekend and continues to create many of the company’s products herself.
Watch: Karissa Bodnar’s Thrive Causemetics for people with sensitive skin conditions
Karissa Bodnar Biography
- Full Name: Karissa Bodnar
- Date of Birth: 9 July 1988
- Education: University of Washington
- Claim to Fame: Founder, CEO, Thrive Causemetics
What is Karissa Bodnar’s advice for young women wanting to start their own business?
The Thrive Causemetics founder says, “There’s nobody that’s going to work as hard as you, and if you don’t know your why—why you’re starting this business—it’s going to be really tough when you’re up at 4 a.m, printing labels and packing orders for customers.”
5/11
Taylor Swift
Age: 31
Profession: Singer
Net Worth: $400 Million
Taylor Alison Swift, a thirty-one-year-old is American singer and songwriter has a net worth of more than $400 million. Swift has leveraged her celebrity status and asked her fans to support the equality act. Her Folklore album was written and produced during the quarantine. The album has sold over a million units already. The lesser-known fact about Swift is that she owns two Dassault private jets.
Watch: Taylor Swift’s incredible journey so far
Taylor Swift Biography
- Full Name: Taylor Alison Swift
- Date of Birth: 13 December 1989
- Education: Hendersonville High School, Aaron Academy
- Claim to Fame: Singer-Songwriter
- Years active: 2003–present
How Taylor Swift makes and spends her $365 million fortune?
Swift’s net worth comes from her albums, streaming, merchandise, promotions, and tours. According to Business Insider, Swift has an $84 million real estate portfolio, with properties all over the world. She has not one, but two, Nashville mansions – one worth $3 million. Swift has been strategic and generous with her money, often donating it to causes she supports and people in need.
6/11
Katrina Lake
Age: 38
Profession: Businesswoman
Net Worth: $360 Million
Katrina Lake is a thirty-eight-year-old businesswoman, also the founder and CEO of Stitch Fix, a Fashion subscription service brand that was established in 2011 and went public in 2017. Lake is an MBA from Harvard Business School with a net worth of more than $350 million. Lake started Stitch Fix from her apartment, went public in 2017and owns a 10% stake. Stitch Fix has more than three million active customers and generates more than two billion in revenue.
Watch: Katrina Lake And Stitch Fix’s Pandemic Success
Katrina Lake Biography
- Full Name: Katrina Lake
- Date of Birth: 24 December 1982
- Education: Harvard Business School
- Claim to Fame: Founder, CEO, Stitch Fix
How Katrina Lake built Stich Fix from ground up?
In 2010, Katrina Lake recruited 20 friends for an experiment: she wanted to see if she could choose clothes for them that accurately matched their style and personality. That idea sparked Stitch Fix, an online personal shopping service that aims to take the guesswork out of shopping. Today, it has about three million customers and brings in more than a billion dollars in annual revenue.
7/11
Lady Gaga
Age: 34
Profession: Singer
Net Worth: $320 Million
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta aged thirty-four, professionally known as Lady Gaga attained fame with her debut album in 2008 and has a net worth of over $150 million. Lady Gaga has received eleven Grammy awards and Academy awards. Lady Gaga also launched Haus Laboratories, a makeup brand that is exclusively available on Amazon. Lady Gaga is a singer, actress, philanthropist, and businesswoman.
Watch: Lady Gaga Launches her own makeup lineup, Haus Laboratories
Lady Gaga Biography
- Full Name: Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta
- Date of Birth: March 28, 1986
- Education: New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts
- Claim to Fame: Singer, Actress, Founder, Haus Laboratories, Born This Way Foundation
- Years active: 2001–present
Was Lady Gaga’s infamous ‘meat dress’ made with real meat?
The answer is yes, the dress that Lady Gaga wore at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, comprised 50 pounds of rib and steak purchased from designer Franc Fernandez’s butcher. Replicas were made and sold for up to $100,000 (£80,000), while the original dress was preserved and put on exhibition.
8/11
Reshma Shetty
Age: 40
Profession: Entrepreneur
Net Worth: $260 Million
Reshma Shetty cofounded Ginkgo Bioworks in 2009 with her husband Barry Canton and three others. Ginkgo Bioworks is a synthetic biotechnology company. Shetty is a Ph.D. holder in Biological engineering at MIT and has a net worth of over 260 million dollars.
Watch: Reshma Shetty’s advice to STEM students
Reshma Shetty Biography
- Full Name: Reshma Shetty
- Education: Biological Engineering, MIT
- Claim to Fame: Co-founder, Gingko Bioworks
- Years active: 2005–present
What mistakes or regrets does Reshma Shetty have on how things have played out?
Shetty reveals it’s easier to change the balance in a company when it’s just a handful of people. She tells: “The biggest regret I have is actually not thinking consciously about diversity and inclusion issues earlier in Ginkgo’s history. We started thinking about them seriously in about 2015 or so, when we were still relatively small, about 30 people. But we could have thought about diversity and inclusion even earlier.”
9/11
Kylie Jenner
Age: 23
Profession: TV Personality, Businesswoman
Net Worth: $1 Billion
Twenty-three year old, Kylie Jenner is an American model and businesswoman. She became famous with the TV series Keeping up with the Kardashians. Jenner is the founder of Kylie Cosmetics, a cosmetic company. Jenner sold her 51% stakes to Coty Inc and made more than five hundred million before tax.
Watch: Kylie Jenner’s Billion Dollar Business Advice
Kylie Jenner Biography
- Full Name: Kylie Kristen Jenner
- Date of Birth: 10 August 1997
- Education: Laurel Springs School, Sierra Canyon School
- Claim to Fame: Founder, Kylie Cosmetics
- Years active: 2007–present
- Net worth: $1 Billion
How Kylie Jenner became famous?
When Jenner was only nine years old, she was introduced to the world as the youngest sister on her family’s reality show, Keeping Up With the Kardashians. The series became an instant hit, and everyone in the Kardashian-Jenner family became household names. When Jenner was 18 years old, she launched her own beauty company, Kylie Cosmetics in which she holds a 100% stake. Kylie Cosmetics is estimated to be worth almost $1 billion, and, as a result, Jenner has been declared a billionaire.
10/11
Huda Kattan
Age: 34
Profession: Makeup Artist, Entrepreneur
Net Worth: $600 Million
Huda Kattan with a net worth of more than $600 million, is an Iraq American entrepreneur, beauty blogger, and makeup artist. Kattan is the founder of the cosmetics company Huda Beauty. Kattan began her beauty blog and makeup artist profession after a stint at a finance job. Huda Beauty products range from eyeshadow to lipgloss and the company is valued at more than a billion dollars. Kattan is also an Instagram influencer with more than forty-seven million followers.
Watch: How Huda Kattan became one of the most successful beauty bloggers in the world
Huda Kattan Biography
- Full Name: Huda Kattan
- Date of Birth: 2 October 1983
- Education: University of Michigan–Dearborn
- Claim to Fame: Founder, Huda Beauty
- Years active: 2010–present
Why Huda Kattan won’t let her daughter wear make-up?
Huda says her eight-year-old daughter Nour Giselle has inherited her love of beauty. Unlike UK reality stars Katie Price and Kerry Katona who have been blasted by fans for allowing their daughters to wear a full-face of make-up from as young as FIVE, Huda is keen to keep her away from the slap for as long as possible. She says: “I don’t want her looking too sexy as a child. I already think she’s so adorable and so beautiful, so she can wait.”
11/11
Beyonce Knowles
Age: 39
Profession: Singer, Businesswoman
Net Worth: $500 Million
The American songwriter, singer, actress, and humanitarian, Beyonce Knowles was born in Texas. The thirty-nine-year-old singer has a net worth of more than four hundred million dollars. Knowles has lent her voice in the famous remake of the Lion King and rose to fame with the girl-group Destiny’s child.
Watch: The Evolution of Beyonce
Beyonce Knowles Biography
- Full Name: Beyoncé Giselle Knowles
- Date of Birth: 4 September 1981
- Education: Elsik High School, Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts
- Claim to Fame: Singer, Destiny’s Child
- Years active: 1997–present
Why didn’t Jay-Z divorce Beyonce?
Jay-Z is continuing his public admission of guilt in a wide-ranging interview where he says: “You know, most people walk away, and the divorce rate is like 50 percent or something ’cause most people can’t see themselves,” he said. “The hardest thing is seeing pain on someone’s face that you caused, and then have to deal with yourself.”
The list includes some of the youngest talented and self-made millionaire women that have created highly successful business empires with sheer grit, commitment, and fearlessness. These beautiful and courageous women have paved the way for many others to believe in themselves and take the world of business by the horns!
Before You Go:
Madame CJ Walker (1867-1919) was the first self-made woman millionaire in the world documented in history. Madame Walker was also the first African-American woman millionaire in history. She amassed her wealth through a successful hair care company “Madam CJ Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower” which she founded in 1905. Accounted for inflation, Madam CJ Walker’s fortune would amount to more than $15 million today.
Martha Helen Stewart (1941-present) became the world’s first documented self-made woman billionaire in 1999 when her company Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia went public. However, she faced tough days when she was convicted for a stock trading related case which negatively impacted her company and net worth, taking away the billionaire tag. Martha Stewart is a relative of famous American late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel.
241 as per Forbes Billionaire list of 2020 which stands at 11.5 percent among a total 2095 billionaires in the world.
