10 richest self-made female billionaires in America

Most of the top 10 richest self-made female billionaires in the US are over 70 years old with their fortunes coming from starting businesses with their husbands.

1. Diane Hendricks

Assets: 15 billion USD

Source of wealth: construction materials

Age: 76

Diane Hendricks is president of ABC Supply, one of the largest roofing, siding and window wholesalers in the United States. Hendricks co-founded the company with her late husband Ken in Beloit, Wisconsin, in 1982. She has run the company since his death in 2007.

She led ABC through two of the largest acquisitions in the company’s history, including the 2010 acquisition of rival Bradco and the 2016 merger of building materials distributor L&W Supply. ABC Supply has more than 900 locations and had $18.5 billion in revenue last year.

2. Judy Love and family

Photo: The Oklahoman — Photo: *The Oklahoman*

Assets: 10.2 billion USD

Source of wealth: gas station

Age: 85

Judy Love and her husband Tom (died 2023) founded Love's Travel Stops & Country Stores, a chain of convenience stores and truck stops, in 1964. They leased their first gas station in Watonga, Oklahoma, with a $5,000 loan from Tom's parents.

Today, she and her four children co-own the company. Her sons Greg and Frank have been co-CEOs since 2014. Judy kept the books and ran the company until 1975. Love's has more than 610 stores in 41 states and an estimated $26.5 billion in annual revenue.

3. Judy Faulkner

Assets: 7.4 billion USD

Source of wealth: medical software

Age: 79

A former programmer, Judy Faulkner founded medical records software company Epic Systems in a Wisconsin basement in 1979. She is now CEO and owns 47% of the company.

Epic supports the medical records of more than 250 million patients and is used by leading medical centers like Johns Hopkins and the Mayo Clinic, with revenue of $4.6 billion in 2022. The company has never raised venture capital or made an acquisition. It develops all of its software in-house. Faulkner signed the Giving Pledge in 2015, agreeing to give 99% of his wealth to a private charitable foundation.

4. Lynda Resnick

Assets: 5.3 billion USD

Source of wealth: agriculture

Age: 80

From almonds and oranges in California’s Central Valley to grapefruit in South Texas, Lynda Resnick and her husband Stewart have made billions of dollars growing fruits and nuts. They co-founded and continue to co-own Wonderful, one of the largest agricultural companies in the United States. As a couple, they share an estimated fortune of $10.6 billion.

Lynda dropped out of college at 19 to start an advertising agency and first met Stewart as a client in the 1960s. The two have since divorced, and Lynda now focuses on philanthropy, pledging more than $2 billion to climate change research.

5. Thai Lee

Photo: Siraj Iqbal — Photo: *Siraj Iqbal*

Assets: 4.8 billion USD

Source of assets: information technology

Age: 64

Thai Lee is CEO of IT provider SHI International, which has 15,000 customers including Boeing and AT&T, and $14 billion in IT revenue. Born in Bangkok, Lee grew up in South Korea and moved to the United States for high school.

She received her MBA from Harvard and worked at Procter & Gamble and American Express before SHI. She and her ex-husband paid less than a million dollars to buy a software retailer in 1989, the predecessor to SHI.

6. Johnelle Hunt

Photo: Arkansas Business — Photo: *Arkansas Business*

Assets: 4.4 billion USD

Source of wealth: transportation

Age: 91

Johnelle Hunt and her husband Johnnie (who died in 2006) founded trucking company JB Hunt Transport Services in 1969. Based in Arkansas, the company went public in 1983 and is now one of the largest transportation companies in the United States, with revenues of $14.8 billion. She remains the company's largest individual shareholder, with nearly 18% of the shares.

7. Gail Miller

Assets: 4.2 billion USD

Source of wealth: car sales

Age: 79

She and her husband Larry (who died in 2009) turned a Toyota dealership into the eighth-largest auto dealership group in the US — the Larry H. Miller Group — before selling it to Asbury Automotive in 2021 for $3.2 billion.

She and her husband bought the Utah Jazz NBA basketball team in 1986 for $22 million. In 2020, they agreed to sell it to billionaire Ryan Smith for $1.66 billion, retaining a minority stake. In 2018, she published a book called "Courage To Be You: Inspiring Lessons From An Unexpected Journey."

8. Marian Ilitch

Assets: 4 billion USD

Source of wealth: pizza chain

Age: 90

Marian Ilitch and her husband Mike (who died in 2017) co-founded Little Caesars Pizza in 1959. The pizza chain generates more than $4.5 billion in annual revenue. She also owns the Detroit Red Wings NHL ice hockey team and the MotorCity Casino hotel.

Her family also owns the Detroit Tigers MLB baseball team. Ilitch is building a $1.4 billion sports and entertainment complex in Detroit, including a new headquarters with pizza-shaped windows.

9. Elizabeth Uihlein

Assets: 3.7 billion USD

Source of assets: industrial supplies

Age: 77

Elizabeth Uihlein is the President of Uline, North America’s largest distributor of moving, packaging and industrial supplies, with 8,500 employees. Headquartered in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, Uline has an estimated $6.1 billion in revenue from selling more than 40,000 products to businesses nationwide.

Elizabeth and her husband Richard founded Uline in their basement in 1980. They are the fourth-largest donors to political campaigns in the United States, having donated more than $190 million. Of that, they have spent more than $40 million in the 2022 midterm elections supporting Republican candidates, including Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Adam Laxalt of Nevada and Herschel Walker of Georgia.

10. Peggy Cherng

Assets: 3.1 billion USD

Source of wealth: fast food

Age: 75

Peggy Cherng is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Panda Express, a $5.4 billion Chinese fast-food chain with more than 2,300 locations. Panda also owns stakes in fast-casual chains such as Urbane Cafe, Just Salad, Uncle Tetsu, Pieology and Ippudo.

In 1982, she left her engineering career to help her husband, Andrew Cherng, open the first Panda Express location in the second largest shopping mall in Los Angeles.
She built systems to operate and track customer feedback. In 2018, the Cherngs invested in the group that owns the Mandarin Oriental, now the Waldorf Astoria, in Las Vegas for $214 million.

Phien An ( according to Forbes )

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