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These are the 11 richest women in tech

Feb 5, 2019, 21:16 IST

STR/AFP/Getty; Steve Jennings/Getty; Paul Marotta/Getty; Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty; Shayanne Gal/Business Insider

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  • Sheryl Sandberg, Laurene-Powell Jobs, and Meg Whitman are some of the most well-known women in tech who are each worth more than a billion dollars.
  • The number of tech-industry women on Forbes' ranking of the world's wealthiest people is significantly lower than the amount of men in tech that dominate the rankings.
  • These are the 11 richest women in the tech industry, based on Forbes' billionaires list.

Women make up only a tiny percentage of leadership positions in major companies, and an even smaller amount are executives in the technology sector.

The first woman in tech to appear in Forbes' annual ranking of the world's wealthiest people doesn't show up until the No. 57 spot, where Laurene Powell Jobs sits with a cool $18.5 billion net worth.

Business Insider has compiled a list of the richest women in tech, based on their net worths on February 1st as shown on Forbes' rankings. Some of the names on the list - like Sheryl Sandberg and Laurene Powell-Jobs - you may recognize, but there are powerful women heading up tech companies in China and Hong Kong in the rankings as well.

Here are the 11 richest women in tech around the world, based on their net worths:

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11. Sheryl Sandberg — $1.6 billion

Ranking on Forbes' list of world's wealthiest: 1,396

Age: 49

Country: United States

Source of wealth: Sandberg is the chief operating officer at Facebook, and previously served as Google's vice president of global online sales and operations.

10. Zeng Fangqin — $1.6 billion

Ranking on Forbes' list of world's wealthiest: 1,389

Age: 53

Country: China

Source of wealth: Zeng is the chairwoman for Lingyi Technology, which supplies electronic components for smartphones, tablets, and laptops for major companies such as Huawei and Apple.

9. Wang Laichun — $2.0 billion

Ranking on Forbes' list of world's wealthiest: 1,161

Age: 51

Country: China

Source of wealth: Wang serves as the chairwoman of Luxshare Precision, which manufacturers electronic connectors for companies like Apple. Wang has also previously worked for Foxconn.

8. Thai Lee — $2.3 billion

Ranking on Forbes' list of world's wealthiest: 1,028

Age: 60

Country: United States

Source of wealth: Lee is the CEO of SHI International, a New Jersey-based provider of information technology (IT) products and services. The company reportedly has more than 17,000 customers, which include AT&T and Boeing.

7. Lam Wai Ying — $2.3 billion

Ranking on Forbes' list of world's wealthiest: 1,021

Age: Unknown

Country: Hong Kong

Source of wealth: Lam is the chairwoman and co-owner of Biel Crystal Manufactory, which makes touchscreen glass for iPhones and other tech products, including smartwatches and tablets.

6. Ma Dongmin ("Melissa Ma") — $2.6 billion

Ranking on Forbes' list of world's wealthiest: 861

Age: 49

Country: China

Source of wealth: Ma is married to Robin Li, who is the cofounder and CEO of Chinese search engine Baidu. Ma left the company in 2007, but joined back on in 2017 to serve as special assistant to the chairman (her husband).

5. Zhou Qunfei — $3.1 billion

Ranking on Forbes' list of world's wealthiest: 726

Age: 49

Country: Hong Kong

Source of wealth: Zhou is the founder and CEO of Lens Technology, a Chinese tech company that manufactures protective glass for touchscreens for smartphone makers like Samsung, LG, and Microsoft. She's considered the world's richest woman whose fortune is self-made.

4. Meg Whitman — $3.3 billion

Ranking on Forbes' list of world's wealthiest: 661

Age: 62

Country: United States

Source of wealth: Whitman was CEO of eBay until 2008, a 10-year stint during which the e-commerce site's annual revenue grew from a few million to $8 billion. She's served as CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and was named the CEO of short-video startup Quibi in April 2018. Whitman also serves on the board for esports organization Immortals.

3. Judy Faulkner — $3.6 billion

Ranking on Forbes' list of world's wealthiest: 592

Age: 75

Country: United States

Source of wealth: Faulkner is the founder and CEO of Epic Systems, a software company for electronic medical records. The company, founded in 1979, stores the medical information of hundreds of millions of Americans in its software.

2. Dagmar Dolby — $4.1 billion

Ranking on Forbes' list of world's wealthiest: 479

Age: 77

Country: United States

Source of wealth: Dolby is the largest shareholder of Dolby Laboratories, a producer of surround-sound systems and noise reduction technologies. She owns about 38% of the company that her late husband founded in 1965.

1. Laurene Powell Jobs — $18.5 billion

Ranking on Forbes' list of world's wealthiest: 57

Age: 55

Country: United States

Source of wealth: Jobs has significant stakes in Apple and Disney that she inherited from her late husband, Apple cofounder Steve Jobs. She founded a social impact firm in the early 2000s called Emerson Collective, which now has a majority stake in The Atlantic.

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