Should the fairer sex be the rarer sex?

By Ruwani Dharmawardana

(April 04, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Mexican telecom giant Carlos Slim has topped Forbes magazine’s billionaire’s list-2010, the first time since 1994 that an American has not led the rankings. Slim’s fortune rose by $18.5 billion last year to $53.5 billion. Thatbeat Microsoft founder Bill Gates ($53 billion) into second place, with the US investor Warren Buffett ($43 billion) third. One of the most noteworthy aspects of the Forbes list in recent years has been the growth in Indian and Chinese billionaires. This year there are 41 Indian billionaires and 60 from China. The richest Indian is Mukesh Ambani ($29 billion) in fourth place of the Forbes list. In addition, Lakshmi Mittal ($28.7 billion) is the fifth richest person in the world.

What about the women billionaires? Is it true that as some writers question, when it comes to the ranks of the world’s billionaires, the fairer sex is still very much the rarer sex? However, one cannot forget old sayings on success; for example, “Behind a Successful Man There is a Woman” according to the famous saying. In fact, once Slim, the world’s richest man, was posed with the question of “What would you say is the secret of your success?” he answered, “I think that the family I was born and raised in, my marriage, my children, my friends… But I think that success is not economic. To think of success as a material issue is not right”. In 1966, when Slim was only 25 years old he started building what was to become one of his flagship companies, Grupo Carso. “Carso” was derived from the start of his name and that of his wife, Soumaya Domit Gemayel, whom he married in 1966. His wife passed away in 1999, leaving an invaluable legacy.

Despite the sad truth that many women give up their career prospects for the sake of their families, still there are many women billionaires in the world like J.K. Rowling, Margaret Cushing, and Zhang Xin, to name a few. One of the studies by Bristol University of 560 mothers who returned to full-time work after the birth of their first child showed that, within two years, 17 % had switched to part-time work and 19 % had given up all together.

One of the women icon billionaires is Joanne “Jo” Murray, better known under the pen name J. K. Rowling, author of the beloved Harry Potter series. Once a single mother dependent on welfare, she hit it big when her spirited stories about the boy wizard captured generations of readers around the globe. Apart from writing the Potter novels, Rowling is perhaps equally well-known for her “rags to riches” life story, in which she progressed from living on welfare to multi-millionaire status within five years. The 2008 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling’s fortune at £560 million ($798 million), ranking her as the twelfth richest woman in Britain.

And there is Meg Whitman, the former president and chief of eBay who oversaw the popular auction site. Margaret Cushing “Meg” Whitman (born August 4, 1956) was President and Chief Executive Officer of eBay from March 1998 to March 2008. Harvard Business Review named Whitman the eighth best performing CEO of the past decade; see “The 100 Best-Performing CEOs in the World”, Harvard Business Review. January, 2010.

In addition, Zhang Xin is a wealthy businesswoman from Mainland China who is presently the CEO of SOHO China, the largest real estate developer in Beijing. She co-founded her property development company SOHO China, which stands for Small Office, Home Office with her husband Pan Shiyi in 1995. When it went public in 2007, it had raised $1.9 billion. Zhang at aged 14 worked in a garment factory, while learning English at a secretarial college. She managed to get a scholarship to study economics at the University of Sussex in England and went on to gain a masters degree from Cambridge. In 2009, Zhang Xin was included among Forbes’ “Top Ten Billionaire Women We Admire” and Financial Times’ “Top 50 Women in World Business”.

Savitri Jindal is the richest woman of India, according to the Forbes List. With her net worth of $12.2 billion, Jindal, 60, ranks 44 from the top on the list. Widow with nine children, Forbes lists her source of income as steel. Non-executive chair of O.P. Jindal Group, she took over as head after her husband’s death. She is also a Congress MLA from Hisar constituency in Haryana. The next Indian woman on the list is Indu Jain, who is at number 354 with a net worth of $2.8 billion. Jain, 73, chairs privately held media conglomerate Bennett, Coleman & Co. She is also a widow with two children.

The writer wishes that the above cited stories of women millionaires will be a source of inspiration for women out there to be perky no matter what they endure and going through in life and to become top-notch in their majors. The above cited inspirational stories suggest that being family oriented and having children, still women can excel in their fields if they are courageous, non-procrastinators, organised and optimistic.

(The writer is the author of the book titled ‘Principles and Practice of Company Law in Sri Lanka, 2008’)