A Comprehensive List of Top 10

September 2024 · 16 minute read

As of 2023, the richest black woman in the world is Oprah Winfrey, whose net worth is currently estimated at $2.8 billion, according to Forbes. She is an American talk show host turned media mogul. 

There is no arguing the fact that a lot of women of African descent have, over the years, become irresistible in different ventures, including businesses, entertainment, media, and what have you. With passion, hard work, and determination, they have risen to the top of their different careers and the world in general.

Moreover, these women and more have succeeded in establishing the fact that wealth and fortune do not in any way recognize gender or race. Even though the list of the richest people in the world seems to be dominated by men, it is interesting to know that women, specifically Black women, have also pulled through to enviable heights. Here are the top 10 of the wealthiest of them in the whole world currently.

1. Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and media proprietor best known for her talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show. She is considered the richest black woman in the world right now, with a net worth Forbes pegged at $2.8 billion. Oprah Winfrey made her fortune primarily from her popular The Oprah Winfrey Show, which ran for 25 years. The show ran from 1986 to 2011 and became the highest-rated TV show in history.

Oprah Winfrey also made mouthwatering profits from movies from her production company, Harpo Productions. Moreover, Winfrey is also an investor and co-author of five books. Her other assets include a stake in her cable channel, Oprah Winfrey Network, a stake in Weight Watchers, Warner Bros. Discovery, and a reasonable real estate portfolio which includes homes in California, Nashville, and more than a dozen properties in Hawaii.

Oprah Winfrey is not only the richest black woman in the world but also one of the most influential women in the world today. She is the first African American individual to attain a multi-billion dollar net worth in North America.

2. Isabel dos Santos

The oldest child of Angola’s former President José Eduardo dos Santos, Isabel dos Santos, is a businesswoman. The Angolan is ranked the second richest black woman in the world, with an estimated net worth of $2 billion. She started showing interest in business from an early age, and with the encouragement of her father, hard work, and determination, she has today built an impressive investment portfolio for herself.

Isabel dos Santos launched her first business, Miami Beach Club, a nightclub and beach restaurant in 1997. In 2000, she was associated with Ubana as a project manager engineer, being a graduate of Electrical Engineering from Kinng’s College, London. Santos has an interest in telecommunications, media, finance, and retail and has, over the years, established diverse holdings.

She has a 25% stake in Angolan mobile phone company Unitel and a 25% ownership in the popular Angola bank Banco BIC SA. What’s more, the Angolan businesswoman owns decent investments in Nos SGPS, a prominent Portuguese cable TV provider, and a stake of below 20% in Banco BPI. Her business interest extends to other holdings such as Santoro Finance, Condis, Esperaza Holding, and Trans Africa Investment Services.

Meanwhile, worthy to note is that Isabel was once declared the richest black woman in Africa by Forbes. This was in 2013, and then she had a net worth of $3.5 billion. However, her net worth dropped off in 2021. She faced a series of investigations and money laundry allegations, leading to her removal from Forbes’ list of Africa’s richest women.

3. Rihanna

Robyn Rihanna Fenty is a Barbadian singer, songwriter, businesswoman, and actress residing in Los Angeles, California. She has an enviable spot in the list of the richest black women in the world as the third, thanks to her impressive exploits in the world of music and beauty (cosmetics). A self-made billionaire, Rihanna has a net worth of $1.4 billion.

The star singer started her music career in 2003 and released numerous commercially successful albums. She has achieved fourteen No. 1 singles and thirty-one top 10 singles in the United States. With more than 250 million records sold worldwide, Rihanna is considered one of the best-selling music artists of all time.

Not only that but she is also regarded as the highest-certified female artist of all time on the RIAA’s Top Artists (Digital Singles) ranking. Rihanna is also an actress and has appeared in such films as Bring It On: All or Nothing, Battleship, Guava Island, and Home, among others. However, much more than all of these (music and acting), Rihanna has managed to establish herself in the business sector.

She is a co-owner of Tidal, the cosmetic company Fenty Beauty, the lingerie brand Savage X Fenty, and the skincare brand Fenty Skin. According to Forbes, Rihanna’s wealth primarily originates from her makeup line, Fenty Beauty, rather than music. The cosmetic company, which she co-owns with French luxury retailer LVMH, had its revenue double in 2022.

Her lingerie line has also hugely contributed to her net worth. Rihanna is doing impressively both in her music career and business ventures. In 2019, she emerged as the richest female music artist. Significantly, she is the first and only artist to have achieved more than 100 million gold and platinum singles certifications.

4. Folorunsho Alakija

Folorunsho Alakija is a 72 year-old Nigerian billionaire businesswoman and philanthropist. Her net worth is currently estimated at $1 billion, spotting her as the richest woman in Nigeria and one of the richest black women in the world. Her wealth stems primarily from her diverse successful ventures in the oil and gas sector, fashion, real estate, and printing industries.

Folorunsho Alakija is the group managing director of The Rose of Sharon Group and the executive vice-chairman of Famfa Oil Limited. Upon graduating from Pitman’s Central College, London, she kicked off her banking career in 1974 at Sijuade Enterprises in Lagos, Nigeria, where she worked as an executive secretary.

After that, she worked at First National Bank of Chicago, now known as First City Monument Bank. Folorunsho left the bank shortly and established her own fashion house, Supreme Stitches, and thanks to her exceptional talent, she, in a short while, started getting a lot of attention and recognition across the country. She simply became one of Nigeria’s leading designers with top clients in the likes of Supreme Stitches.

Supreme Stitches has today been renamed Rose of Sharon House of Fashion. She gained more recognition in the fashion industry for celebrating Nigerian culture through her clothing creations and designs. Away from her exploits in the fashion world, Folorunsho Alakija is into real estate. She has a substantial stake in DaySpring Property Development Company.

Furthermore, Alakija has a 60 percent stake in Agbami Oilfield, a prolific offshore asset. Famfa Oil, a Nigerian oil exploration company where she is the executive vice-chairman, has other partners such as Chevron and Petrobras.

5. Ngina Kenyatta

Ngina Kenyatta, popularly known as “Mama Ngina,” is the widow of Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta (~1889–1978). She is the former first lady of Kenya and the mother of Kenya’s fourth president, Uhuru Kenyatta, who served from 2013 to 2022. Ngina Kenyatta has a net worth of $1 billion, and she acquired such enormous wealth mainly through imports, exports, manufacturing, real estate, farming, and banking.

As the matriarch of the Kenyatta family, Ngina is the one who manages the gigantic prime real estate collection that her late husband, Jomo Kenyatta, acquired during the British colonial government. Ngina holds a decent stake in almost half of all multinational corporations operating in Kenya.

In addition, her family has a significant stake in the Commercial Bank of Africa, Media Max Company, Heritage Hotels, and Brookside Diaries, the largest dairy company in Kenya. Her business initiatives and outstanding success over time gathered attention both within and across her home country. Far back in 2012, Forbes recognized her as one of the female millionaires to watch out for in Africa. And today, she is no longer just a millionaire but a billionaire.

6. Hajia Bola Shagaya

Hajia Bola Shagaya is another woman of African descent who has showcased nothing but hard work, resilience, and excellence in her various business ventures. She is a Nigerian business tycoon, fashion enthusiast, and political icon with an estimated net worth of $950 million, establishing herself as one of the richest black women in the world today. She is one of Nigeria’s wealthiest businesswomen.

Hajia Bola Shagaya is the founder and CEO of Bolmus Group International, a diversified Nigerian conglomerate with interests in industries like oil and gas, real estate, banking, communication, and photography. After graduating from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and Armstrong College California, Hajia had her first job at the Central Bank of Nigeria before venturing into entrepreneurship.

Her business career kicked off when she started importing and exporting photographic materials, specifically the Konica brand of photographic materials in Nigeria and West Africa. Hajia Bola Shagaya currently serves as the managing director of Practoil Limited, one of Nigeria’s importers and distributors of base oil. Furthermore, she is the patron of the Fashion Designers Association of Nigeria (FADAN).

She has been on United Bank Plc’s board for over a decade. Her investments and active involvement in these prestigious industries and more have, in no small ways, contributed to the growth of her net worth. In fact, there is no notable mention of people with entrepreneurial spirit who run multi-million dollar conglomerates without Hajia Bola Shagaya coming to mind.

Away from her interest in photographic materials, which is one of the pillars of her wealth, the business tycoon is also a real estate investor. She has invested in and acquired properties in some of the priciest neighborhoods across her home country, Nigeria, where clients pay mouthwatering sums.

7. Sheila Johnson

Sheila Johnson’s net worth, according to Forbes in 2023, is $840 million, equally ranking in the list of richest black women in Africa. She is an American businesswoman, co-founder of BET, and CEO of Salamander Hotels and Resorts. Notably, Sheila Johnson is the first African American woman to attain a net worth of at least one billion US dollars, although it dropped off sometime in 2021. She was in the same year on Forbes as one of America’s Self-Made Women.

Sheila Johnson is the co-founder of the cable TV channel Black Entertainment Network (BET). She founded the TV channel alongside her then-husband Robert L. Johnson in 1979; in 2001, they sold it for $3 billion to Viacom. Then, following her divorce from Johnson in 2002, Shelia sold off her own shares and invested the money into the hospitality business (hotels in Virginia and Florida), real estate, planes, and horses.

She served as the chief executive officer of Salamander Hotel And Resorts. The company’s portfolio includes Reunion Resort, The Innisbrook Resort and Gulf Club, and The Salamander Resort and Spa. Her Innisbrook resort in Palm Harbor annually hosts the PGA Tour Championship. Moreover, Sheila Johnson has served as the governor, managing partner, and team president of WMBA’s Franchise, Washington Mystics, for more than two decades.

What’s more, Sheila Johnson was the executive producer of the 2013 highly acclaimed movie The Butler. In the past years, she has been recognized with several awards, including the Billie Jean King Leadership Award by the Women’s Sports Foundation, the Lincoln Medal by Ford’s Theatre Society, and the Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Medal.

She owns stakes in the NBA’s Wizards and the NHL’s Capitals. Also, she is the co-founder of Black Entertainment Television, the first TV station that has its focus on the interests, needs, and culture of African Americans.

8. Janice Bryant Howroyd

Janice Bryant Howroyd is an American serial businesswoman, entrepreneur, and author known for being the founder and chief executive officer of The ActOne Group, a provider of workforce solutions, including temporary staffing. Her net worth is currently pegged at $600 million. As of 2022, the revenue of her ActOne Group is estimated at $1.1 billion by Forbes.

Just upon graduating from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in 1978, Janice Bryant Howroyd launched the business located in Los Angeles. Reportedly, he founded the business with $1,500, a $900 loan from her mother, a fax machine, and a phone. Today, The ActOne Group generates nothing less than $1 billion in annual revenue.

The agency has, since its creation, employed over 2,600 staff and has more than 17,000 clients in 33 countries, including Fortune 500 organisations and government agencies. The ActOne Group is considered the largest privately held minority-woman-owned personnel company in the United States at the moment. Alongside her family, Janice owns a dozen properties, including residencies and commercial buildings.

Some of her companies that provide personal and recruiting services are ACT-1Govt, AppleOne, ACT-1 Personnel Service, and At-Tech. Meanwhile, besides being the CEO of ActOne Group, Howroyd holds key positions in several organizations. She is a board member of trustees for the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.

Also, she sits on the board of the United States Department of Labor’s Workforce Initiative and Women’s Business Enterprise National Council. Janice Bryant Howroyd is also an author. She has published two books: Acting Up (2019) and The Art of Work (2009). These two books are all about the business tycoon sharing her advice and ideas for conquering the business world.

9. Beyoncé Knowles

Taking the eighth spot on our list of the richest women is Beyoncé Giselle Knowles Carter, an American singer, songwriter, and businesswoman. A majority of her staggering net worth of $540 million comes from her almost three decades as a solo artist and a member of the girl group Destiny’s Child. Beyonce is one of the bestselling artists in the world.

She started singing at age 16 and gained prominence as the lead singer of Destiny’s Child, one of the best-selling girl’s groups of all time. She has since then had her break out in the American music industry and evolved to become one of the leading female artists in the United States of America. Beyonce Knowles has recorded sales of more than 120 million records worldwide.

Some of her highly commercially successful singles include Crazy in Love, If I Were a Boy, Irreplaceable, Run the World (Girls), Baby Boy, Drunk in Love, Love On Top, and Break My Soul, among others. Beyoncé is also an actress from which she earns money as well. She has acted in such films as The Fighting Temptation, Austin Powers in Goldmember, Cadillac Records, The Pink Panther, and The Lion King.

The Lion King earned over $1.6 billion at the worldwide box office, emerging as the highest-grossing animated film of all time. As a businesswoman, Beyonce is the founder and CEO of the successful activewear clothing line Ivy Park and co-owner of Tidal, a music streaming service. She is also the founder of the entertainment company Parkwood Entertainment.

Her fragrance label, Heat, is the best-selling celebrity fragrance line in the world, having made sales of over $400 million. Beyoncé’s net worth of $540 million positions her as the second richest black female musician.

10. Serena Williams

The 10th richest black woman in the world, according to our listing, is Serena Williams, an American former professional tennis player widely regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time. She retired in September 2022. She was ranked world No. 1 in singles by the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), a rank she held for 319 weeks.

Her net worth by Forbes is currently pegged at $290 million, helping her to make it to the list of the richest black women in the world. Williams made almost $95 million in prize money before she hung up her racket. She was the 2016 highest-paid female athlete, earning close to $29 million in prize money and endorsements.

In addition to her exclusive and successful tennis career, Serena Williams is an active investor and is renowned for her business acumen. She is the founder of S by Serena, a clothing line, and a co-founder of Will Perform, a startup that launched in December 2022. The brand makes topical pain relief, skincare, and muscle care products.

In addition, Serena is a stakeholder in UFC and the Miami Dolphins. She founded Serena Ventures, a private investment firm that has investments in more than 60 startups. Serena Williams made a chunk of her wealth from endorsement contracts. She has endorsement deals with more than 12 brands even after she retired from professional tennis career. She channels her earnings from the endorsements into real estate and Serena Ventures.

In April 2023, Williams launched Nine Two Six Productions, a multimedia company, in a bid to expand her endeavors as a producer. She is also an actress and writer; her first children’s book was released in September 2022. Some of the films and TV shows she has appeared in include Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, My Wife and Kids, PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie, The Division, 7 Days in Hell, The Legend of Korra, and Glass Onion, and many more.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is the Richest Black Woman on Earth?

The richest black woman on earth now is Oprah Winfrey, the American talk show host, TV producer, author, actress, and philanthropist. She has a net worth of $2.8 billion, earning her this enviable spot.

Who is the Richest Woman on Earth Right Now?

Right now, the richest woman on earth is Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, a French businesswoman, philanthropist, writer, and billionaire heiress. According to Forbes, Françoise Bettencourt Meyers has a net worth of US$81.8 billion as of 2023. Her wealth primarily accrued from L’Oréal, a Clichy, Paris-based personal care company.

ncG1vNJzZmiapa%2FHr7XGnqmimV6YvK571Kxmq6GTnbK0wIybo5qbm2LEsLnEp2Sipl2ptaZ51qippZxdlnqku8ypqZ6glaPAqsLEZqOiq6RivKd506inZmlgZA%3D%3D