This is the world's richest self made woman

Sorry JK, not this time.

According to Forbes, the world's richest self made woman is Zhou Qunfei, the founder of Lens Technology.

The company is supplies touch screen glass for Apple and a variety of other technology companies.

She reportedly has a net worth of over $7 billion USD.

At the age of 16 Zhou dropped out of school to work in a factory in the city of Shenzhen, making watch lenses for around 75p a day.

She told the New York Times in 2015:

I worked from 8 a.m. to 12 a.m., and sometimes until 2 a.m. There were no shifts, just a few dozen people, and we all polished glass. I didn’t enjoy it.

Not happy with the conditions, she decided to quit and sent a letter to the factory owner which resulted in him offering her a promotion instead.

When the factory folded Zhou set up her own company out of a three-bedroom apartment. The company mostly produced high quality watch lenses until Zhou's big break, when they were approached to make mobile phone screens.

This would be what set her on the path to huge success.

Now, Zhou can boast to being one of 56 self made billionaires in 2017.

She joins 21 self made women billionaires from China alone.

The UK has three female self made billionaires, and the US has 17.

Luisa Kroll, Managing Editor of Wealth at Forbes Media told the magazine:

More women entrepreneurs than ever before have climbed into the ten-figure club. A record 56 self-made women are now billionaires, including the first-ever from countries like Vietnam and Japan.

In fact, more than half of these enterprising women hail from Asia.  Women are still the much rarer sex when it comes to wealth creation, but they are moving in the right direction.

HT Forbes

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