Forbes_USA_June_13_2017

36. Victoria Zoellner
$500 MILLION +
AGE: 74
RESIDENCE: ALPINE, NEW JERSEY
Zoellner is chairman of $1.7 billion
(assets) hedge fund Alpine
Associates Management, named
after Alpine, New Jersey, one of
the ritziest towns in America.
The former Wall Street portfolio
analyst cofounded the firm with
her husband, Robert Zoellner (d.
2014), in 1976 with $400,000
from friends, family and other
associates. The couple wrote
partnership and offering agreements
from the living room of
their apartment; Robert headed
the trading activities, and Victoria
focused on merger arbitrage.
38. Donna Karan
$470 MILLION S
AGE: 68
RESIDENCE: NEW YORK CITY
Karan rebuked President
Trump’s leadership, telling
Forbes: “[He] does not understand
what it means to be the
face of our country. . . . We look
foolish. He is setting us back
50-plus years.” Having sold her
namesake brand to LVMH in
2000, she’s now focused on her
luxury lifestyle company, Urban
Zen, which combines fashion
and philanthropy.
39. Liz Elting
$420 MILLION S
AGE: 51 RESIDENCE: NEW YORK CITY
Cofounder of TransPerfect, one of the
world’s largest translation firms, prevailed
in a three-year legal battle with
co-CEO Phil Shawe. In February, the
Delaware Supreme Court upheld a lower
court’s order forcing the company’s
sale in an open auction due to the pair’s
“dysfunction” and “deadlock.” It also affirmed
$7.1 million in sanctions against Shawe for secretly accessing
Elting’s emails and other misconduct during litigation. Shawe says he
will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the decisions. The pair, who
were briefly engaged, started the business in a dorm room in 1992.
41. Susan Wojcicki
$410 MILLION S
AGE: 48 RESIDENCE: LOS ALTOS, CALIFORNIA
One of a handful of female tech CEOs in Silicon Valley, Wojcicki spoke
out about the discrimination women face in tech in an op-ed in March
titled “How to Break Up the Silicon Valley Boys’ Club.” The percentage
of women at YouTube, where she has served as CEO since 2014, has increased
from 24% to 30%, according to Wojcicki. Google employee
No. 16, she lent her Menlo Park garage to Larry Page and Sergey Brin,
who created the Google search engine there. In 2006, she advocated
for Google’s $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube; the video site is now
worth an estimated $90 billion. Her sister Anne, ex-wife of Brin, is cofounder
of personal-genomics company 23andMe.
41. Jamie
Kern Lima
$410 MILLION +
AGE: 39 RESIDENCE: JERSEY CITY
Beauty industry’s it girl sold IT
Cosmetics, which she founded,
to L’Oréal for $1.2 billion
in August. (See story, p. 80.)
43. Céline Dion
$400 MILLION S
AGE: 49 RESIDENCE: LAS VEGAS
Last February, Dion resumed a
lucrative Las Vegas residency
that had been on hiatus for a
month following her husband’s
January 2016 death; she had
also taken an eight-month
break in 2014 to care for him.
She’s back to playing 70-odd
times a year at Caesars Palace,
where she banked $27 million
(pretax) in 2016 alone. Thanks
to similar gigs, the Canadian
songstress has made most of
her money in Sin City. She also
pulls in earnings from touring
and record sales.
44. Barbra Streisand
$390 MILLION S
AGE: 75
RESIDENCE: MALIBU, CALIFORNIA
Still a huge draw at arenas
around the globe, Streisand
grossed $46 million on a short
14-show stint last year, adding
to a career tour tally in the hundreds
of millions. Streisand is the
only act in history to have a No.
1 album in six consecutive decades.
She has also been shrewd
with her real estate investments:
sources believe her Malibu compound,
reportedly purchased
for under $20 million, could be
worth close to $100 million.
39. Janice
Bryant Howroyd
$420 MILLION X
AGE: 64 RESIDENCE: LAS VEGAS
Bryant Howroyd’s journey to
success started with a vacation
in California in 1976 visiting her
sister. She stayed and two years
later, after not finding a job she
wanted, started an employment
agency with a single desk, one
phone and $1,500, including a
$900 loan from her mother. The
company, Act-1, now has 17,000
clients and 2,600 employees
in 19 countries. Howroyd, who
has served on presidential commissions
with Barack Obama,
George W. Bush and Bill Clinton,
is once again on a presidential
commission with President
Trump. She and her family have
millions invested in real estate,
largely in California.
45. Nora Roberts
$370 MILLION S
AGE: 66 RESIDENCE: BOONSBORO ,
MARYLAND
One of publishing’s busiest
scribes, Roberts has churned out
around five manuscripts a year
since 1981. Born Eleanor Marie
Robertson, she turned to
writing when snowed in during
a blizzard and has since authored
more than 220 romance
and crime novels as Roberts and
under the pseudonym J.D. Robb.
She owns a bookstore, boutique
B&B, gift shop, fitness center
and restaurant in 3,400-person
Boonsboro, Maryland, the town
she calls home.
To compile net worths, we valued
individuals’ assets, including the value
of stakes in public companies, on April
28, when we locked in stock prices. We
valued private companies by speaking
with an array of outside experts
and conservatively comparing the
companies with public competitors.
To be eligible for this list, women
had to have substantially made their
own fortunes and be U.S. citizens or
permanent residents. In cases where
they started businesses with and
still share with their husbands, we’ve
assigned them half of that combined
wealth. We attempted to vet these
numbers with all list entrants. Some
cooperated; others didn’t.
Acknowledgments: Euromonitor
International; FactSet; LW Hospitality
Advisors; Pitchbook; Privco; Simeon
A. Siegel, Nomura Instinet; Staffing
Industry Analysts; Lars Topholm of
Carnegie Investment Bank.
WEALTH STATUS: UP S DOWN TUNCHANGED X NEW +
JUNE 13, 2017 FORBES | 91