Forbes : Asia - Issue August 2022 by PerpustakaanIIM.Majalah

THAILAND’S 50 RICHEST JAY MART

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NADIAH WAN PAYMONGO

GREEN POWER

ANDREW FORREST BACKS HYDROGEN FOR ENERGY’S FUTURE

W W W. F O R B E S .C O M DISPLAY UNTIL MID-AUGUST

AUSTRALIA....................A $12.00 CHINA.......................RMB 85.00 HONG KONG..................HK $90

INDIA................................RS 500 INDONESIA..............RP 100,000 JAPAN......................¥1238 + TAX

KOREA........................... 11,000 MALAYSIA...................RM 30.00 NEW ZEALAND...........NZ $13.00

PHILIPPINES.......................P 350 SINGAPORE...................S $13.00 TAIWAN..........................NT $275

THAILAND..........................B 300 OTHERS........................US $15.00

BREGUET.COM

REINE DE NAPLES 8918

Volume 18 • Number 4

July 2022

INSIDE

CONTENTS

THAILAND’S 50 RICHEST

| Hypergrowth Hero

Adisak Sukumvitaya parlayed Jay Mart from a single store into a tech-driven retailing and financial services group with a total market cap of $6.5 billion. And he’s still dreaming big. By Naazneen Karmali

| Slow Track

Thailand is welcoming back tourists, but the tide is still out for the nation’s richest, who saw their collective wealth fall 5.6% from a year ago. By Naazneen Karmali

FEATURES

| Green Revolution

Andrew Forrest travels the globe trying to persuade leaders of industry and politics—and rank-and-file workers— that despite his polluting past he’s the man to champion green hydrogen as the clean fuel of the future. By David Jeans

COVER CREDIT ANDREW FORREST : Photograph by Jamel Toppin for Forbes

FORBES ASIA

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Volume 18 • Number 4

July 2022

100 TO WATCH: PROFILE

CONTENTS

ASIA’S POWER BUSINESSWOMEN

| Cash Killer

| Good Medicine

Armed with fresh funding, payments fintech PayMongo is enabling small businesses in the Philippines to join the digital economy.

In a post-pandemic world, TMC Life Sciences’ Nadiah Wan can refocus on building the Malaysian hospital firm into a regional healthcare leader.

By Catherine Wang

By Danielle Keeton-Olsen

THE PROFILE

| Charging Ahead

Leandro Leviste looks to grow the Philippines’ solar power industry. By Roel Landingin INVESTING

| From the Ground Up

64 12

By investing in hundreds of startups at the earliest stages and targeting overlooked markets, Magnus Grimeland and Antler are putting their own twist on the entrepreneurial dream. By Kevin Dowd THE LIST

68 | America’s Richest

Self-Made Women These entrepreneurs and executives have created or run some of the nation’s most successful businesses, ranging from almonds to aerospace. By Kerry A. Dolan and Chase Peterson-Withorn

STRATEGIES

| Older and Wiser

At age 60, Giuseppe Crippa accepted a buyout package and started making devices to test microchips. In February his company Technoprobe, whose clients include Apple and Samsung, finally went public.

Tech Connector

Rich Karlgaard

How to beat the Great Resignation. 26

Thoughts

On investing.

By Giacomo Tognini

THE FINTECH 50

| Bankers Without Borders

Silicon Valley VCs were skeptical, but a pair of twentysomethings from Uganda and Ghana believed there was a fortune to be made bringing transnational financial services to Africa’s 1.4 billion people. With 5 million users and a valuation of $2.2 billion, Chipper Cash is just getting started. Plus: The Fintech 50 By Jeff Kauflin

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BUSINESS Chief Executive Officer William Adamopoulos Senior Vice Presidents Tina Wee, Eugene Wong Vice Presidents Aarin Chan, Janelle Kuah Director, Circulation Eunice Soo Sales Directors Michelle Ong, Janice Ang, Kathy Cheng Deputy Director, Circulation Pavan Kumar Deputy Director, Events & Communications Audra Ruyters Deputy Director, Conferences Jolynn Chua Deputy Director, Marketing & Research Joan Low Deputy Director, Ad Services – Digital Keiko Wong Deputy Director/Assistant to CEO Jennifer Chung Senior Manager, Events & Communications Melissa Ng Senior Manager, Ad Services Fiona Carvalho Conference Managers Clarabelle Chaw, Peh Ying Si Managers, Marketing & Research Gwynneth Chan, Kwang Yoke Peng Assistant Manager, Marketing & Research Goh Yu Zhen Advertising Executives Vanessa Lim, Nurafida Ibrahim, Maggie Yeo, Lulinda Leung Circulation Services Taynmoli Karuppiah Sannassy, Jennifer Yim

EDITORIAL Editor Justin Doebele Asia Wealth Editor & India Editor Naazneen Karmali Senior Editors Robert Olsen, Jennifer Wells Special Projects Director Rana Wehbe Watson Design Director Mirna Aprilla Senior Reporter Jonathan Burgos Associate Editor John Kang Senior Designer Mossy Chew Reporter/Multimedia Producer Zinnia Lee Reporter Catherine Wang Executive Assistant Sharon Joseph Contributing Editors Greg Ahlstrand, Richard Borsuk, Susan Cunningham, Jane Ho, Gloria Haraito, Amit Prakash, Yessar Rosendar, Ardian Wibisono ASIA CONTRIBUTOR NETWORK Bangkok Suzanne Nam Beijing Yue Wang Chennai Anuradha Raghunathan Delhi Megha Bahree Ho Chi Minh Lan Anh Nguyen Hong Kong Shu-Ching Jean Chen Manila Roel Landingin Perth Tim Treadgold Singapore Jessica Tan Taipei Joyce Huang Tokyo James Simms

CHAIRMAN AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: STEVE FORBES

FORBES MEDIA Chief Executive Officer and President Michael Federle Chief Operating Officer Jessica Sibley Chief Financial Officer Michael York General Counsel MariaRosa Cartolano Assistant General Counsel Nikki Koval Editor-at-Large/Global Futurist Rich Karlgaard EVP, ForbesWoman Moira Forbes FOUNDED IN 1917 Editor-in-Chief (1917-54) B.C. Forbes Editor-in-Chief (1954-90) Malcolm S. Forbes Editor (1961-99) James W. Michaels Editor (1999-2010) William Baldwin

EDITORIAL Chief Content Officer Randall Lane Executive Editors Caroline Howard, Bob Ivry, Luisa Kroll, Kerry Lauerman, Michael Noer, Matt Schifrin Design Director Alicia Hallett-Chan Managing Editor Joyce Bautista Ferrari Assistant Managing Editors Steven Bertoni, Diane Brady, Seth Cohen, Kerry A. Dolan, Alice Jackson-Jolley, Rob LaFranco, Rashaad Lambert (Culture & Community), Jeffrey Marcus, Janet Novack, Michael Ozanian, Michael Solomon, Jeff Taylor Editorial Counsel Jessica Bohrer DIGITAL Chief Product Officer Nina Gould Chief Technology Officer Vadim Supitskiy

JULY 2022 — VOLUME 18 • NUMBER 4 FORBES ASIA (ISSN 1793 2181) is published monthly, except bimonthly in December/January, February/March and April/May. FORBES ASIA is printed at Times Printers in Singapore. Singapore MCI (P) 046/11/2021. Malaysia KDN PPS 1411/01/2013 (022902). All rights reserved. Title is protected through a trademark registered with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. FORBES ASIA is a trademark of FORBES ASIA. Copyright © 2013 FORBES ASIA. CONTACT INFORMATION For Subscriptions: visit www.ForbesAsiaSubscribe.com, email subscribe@forbesasia.com.sg or call FORBES ASIA at +65 6836 1652 / +65 6836 9476. For Advertising: email advertising@forbesasia.com.sg or call FORBES ASIA at +65 6836 3408. For Article Reprints or Permission to use FORBES ASIA content including text, photos, illustrations and logos: email reprints@forbesasia.com.sg or call FORBES ASIA at +65 6836 3408. Use of FORBES ASIA content without the express written permission of FORBES ASIA or copyright owner is expressly prohibited.

FORBES ASIA

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Fundamental Truths round the world, recent economic indicators are setting new, and ominous, records. The UN forecasts global inflation will hit 6.7% this year, over twice the average of 2.9% during the decade to 2020, and U.S. inflation is at a four-decade high. According to media reports, almost four dozen countries have raised interest rates in the last six months, which are being hiked at some of the fastest paces seen in decades. The war in Ukraine isn’t helping, feeding inflationary forces and geopolitical tensions. With these pressures, the world is starting to feel the tug of economic gravity—which could be termed as what goes up usually must also come down. During Covid-19, central bankers kept taps open for worldwide liquidity, preventing global growth from stalling too much. Now, as many countries transition into “living with the virus” mode, it’s the world economy that appears to be coming down with something—recession. For sure, we may not fully be there yet, but the warning lights are flashing. And in this situation, it may be wise to seek refuge in old-school shelters as the latest high-flying, highly valued companies and assets—more often than not in tech—come crashing back down to earth. This month there’s one major list from Asia, Thailand’s 50 Richest, and two from the U.S., America’s Richest Self-Made Women and the Fintech 50. In these pages, there are emerging signs of the law of economic gravity at work.

In Thailand, the very richest at the top all run companies in decidedly traditional businesses, such as the Chearavanont family’s fortune built on animal feed, the Chirathivats’ wealth derived from retail, and so on. The richest self-made woman in America, Diane Hendricks, did so through building supplies— very much a bricks-and-mortar business. For fintech, most of these companies are aiming to provide tangible improvements in financial services for businesses and consumers. In other words, making money the old-fashioned way is becoming fashionable again. Sell real products or real services that make our physical world better in some way—put food on our plate, clothes on our back and so on. Virtual worlds and metaverses are great and all, but those can’t provide an actual roof over our heads. Our cover subject, Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest, is working on solving the real-world problems caused by fossil fuels. With a fortune derived from mining, Forrest is now promoting a green energy future built on hydrogen, and is putting his considerable clout and resources behind his push to create the infrastructure—and improve the tech—to support hydrogen power’s adoption worldwide. Gravity is a powerful force that keeps us grounded. One of the truths of the new normal is that we may all have to take a big dose of reality. As always, all comments welcome at editor@forbesasia.com.

JUSTIN DOEBELE EDITOR, FORBES ASIA

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FORBES ASIA

TECH CONNECTOR By Rich Karlgaard

How To Beat The Great Resignation “My company is seeing higher-than-usual attrition and also having trouble finding the right talent to fill roles. What’s your take on the labour market in Asia and what’s your advice?” This question was recently sent to the Singapore office of global consulting firm Mercer. But the location is irrelevant. The great resignation problem is global. It is seen in many advanced economies in the world today, with historically high rates of people quitting or switching jobs. Some predict that a recession will end this problem. But who wants a recession? Let’s think about the great resignation more optimistically. Here’s an idea: The way to “solve” the great resignation at your company starts with stepping back and seeing the big picture. Here’s what you’ll see. 1. Digital progress is accelerating. There is a temptation to think digital progress ebbs and flows with the value of tech companies. You might conclude that digital progress is now slowing: For the past six months, tech values have fallen 20% to 60% (and in some cases, more). Don’t make that mistake. Science and technology continue to forge ahead in good markets and bad. Never bet against the rate of digital progress. 2. Anger at corporate tech tools. People under 40 worldwide are frustrated by the pace of digital transformation by employers. Last year I interviewed Cynthia Stoddard, the chief information officer of software giant Adobe. Stoddard says a leading cause of poor morale inside of companies is the use of inferior tools. Employees now have access to superior tech in their personal lives: Social media is easy to use. Computer games are fun. ERP, or enterprise resource planning software, is neither. Younger employees lose respect for bosses who equip them with old tech. 3. Meaningful valuation differences create volatile talent flows. Companies perceived to be tech leaders in their industries generally get higher stock multiples. Smart employees—the kind you want at your company—see this. They want to work for tomorrow’s winners. FORBES ASIA

4. The pandemic revealed that higher education is broken. It is increasingly overpriced for the value it delivers. Young people now see the stark reality: Their expensive college degrees do not guarantee career success. Current knowledge trumps degrees, and learning is not a one-time certificated event. It must be continual throughout one’s career. The best employees will want to work where they can learn. The best employers will become educators. 5. The debate over return-to-office vs. home vs. hybrid will not end soon. Technology evolves too fast to settle it. Each year, at home and hybrid options become better. Don’t pretend the optimal solution in mid-2022 will always be best. 6. Mean bosses weren’t working so well before the pandemic. They don’t work at all now. To stipulate: tough bosses and mean bosses are not identical. Tough bosses expect excellence and hold people accountable, including themselves. Mean bosses are bullies. Rating websites such as Glassdoor now make it easy to tell the difference. 7. Columns should pick a fight now and then! This column believes that human resource departments largely do not serve their companies well. To trim complexity and manage ever-expanding compliance issues, HR departments default to seeing roles, requirements and numbers. But employees want to be seen as living, breathing people with gifts and potential. Don’t overlook the power of cognitive diversity on teams (introverts and extraverts; intuitive and analytical skills, etc.). Spot the late bloomers—those who began their journey behind the elite college degree holders. Welcome both hares and tortoises. Great companies will beat the great resignation. Rich Karlgaard is editor at large at Forbes. As an author and global futurist, he has published several books, the latest of which is Late Bloomers, a groundbreaking exploration of what it means to be a late bloomer in a culture obsessed with SAT scores and early success. For his past columns and blogs visit our website at www.forbes.com/sites/richkarlgaard. J U LY 2 0 2 2

ERHUI1979/GETTY IMAGES

100 TO WATCH

PROFILE

By Catherine Wang

Cash Killer

Armed with fresh funding, payments fintech PAY MO NG O is enabling small businesses in the Philippines to join the digital economy.

COURTESY OF PAYMONGO

PayMongo cofounders (from left): Jaime Hing III, Francis Plaza and Luis Sia.

FORBES ASIA

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A three-year-old Philippine fintech firm is helping digitalize the country’s predominantly cash-based economy, one click at a time. Founded in 2019, Manila-based PayMongo has seen its user base and transaction volumes soar as it taps into the country’s vast pool of tiny merchants—from mom-andpop shops to independent fashion boutiques— that relied on in-person cash dealings before the pandemic. Backed by investors including PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel and payments giant Stripe, PayMongo enables sellers to send payment links to customers, who can pay using a range of options including credit cards and e-wallets. It’s a “Stripe for the Philippines,” says CEO and cofounder Francis Plaza. An honoree of the inaugural Forbes Asia 100 to Watch last year, PayMongo targets small- and medium-sized companies, which along with micro businesses, account for 99.5% of businesses in the Philippines but remain underserved by traditional payment providers. “Our biggest competitor is traditional payments, like cash,” Plaza says in a video interview in March from Madrid, where he celebrated his 28th birthday. In February, PayMongo raised $31 million in a series B round, bringing its total funding to about $46 million. Founded in March 2019, it joined Y Combinator’s summer cohort later that year, becoming the first Philippine fintech to be selected J U LY 2 0 2 2

O U R B I G G E ST C O M P ET I TO R I S T R A D I T I O N A L PAY M E N TS , L I K E C A S H . now the ones saying we should double down in the Philippines.” The country was Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing digital market in 2021, according to a report by Google, Temasek and Bain & Co. It forecasts the Philippine internet economy to more than double to $40 billion by 2025 from $17 billion in 2021. Some of this growth will likely come from increased financial inclusion in a country where about half the population remains unbanked. The government estimates that while only half of Filipino adults had a bank account as of 2021, the group almost doubled in size from 27% in 2020. The country’s latest national strategy for financial inclusion aims to introduce digital payments for all communities by 2023. “We need more people who are using digital tools in order to expand the economy further,” says Plaza. He views the prospect of more people joining the digital economy as a win-win for Philippine fintechs, which are forming a “complementary ecosystem.” To achieve its goal of becoming an industry leader, PayMongo is collaborating with other fintechs including established e-wallets GCash and Maya to make online payments more FORBES ASIA

13 1 0 0 TO WATC H • P RO F I L E

by the U.S.-based startup accelerator. Upon graduation it obtained $2.7 million in seed funding from San Francisco-based Global Founders Capital, Tinder cofounder Justin Mateen and Stripe. PayMongo then raised $12 million in a series A round led by Stripe in 2020, after which the company said it tripled its merchant base to over 10,000 businesses and quadrupled monthly transaction volumes. Plaza declined to disclose these figures. Plaza, who is eyeing expansion beyond the Philippine archipelago, credits each funding round with “changing the narrative of the company” by helping it to roll out products for e-commerce platforms, such as Shopify and WooCommerce, and mobile apps. “From the start, the biggest misconception we had to actively educate outside investors about was the reality of the Philippine market,” says Plaza, a Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia honoree from 2020. “Not too long ago, they saw the Philippines as a small market,” he recalls, adding that “they’re

PAYING UP

FUNDING (IN $ MILLIONS)

PayMongo has raised $46 million since 2019.

2.7

Seed - September 2019 Key investors: Founders Fund (cofounded by Peter Thiel), Stripe, Y Combinator

Series A - September 2020

1 0 0 TO WATC H • P RO F I L E

Key investors: Bedrock Capital, Global Founders Capital, Stripe, Y Combinator

Series B - February 2022 Key investors: Global Founders Capital, ICCP SBI Venture Partners, JAM Fund (founded by Tinder cofounder Justin Mateen), Kaya Founders (backed by Lisa Gokongwei-Cheng), Soma Capital Source: PayMongo

convenient. Prioritizing partnership over competition makes sense for PayMongo, says Sachin Mittal, who heads telecom, media and technology research at DBS Bank in Singapore. “It’s important that you collaborate with a market leader that will promote your solution,” says Mittal, referring to GCash, the Philippines’ largest e-wallet with 51 million users as of October 2021. A digital payments platform isn’t what Plaza and fellow PayMongo cofounders—including chief technology officer Jamie Hing III, chief operating officer Edwin Lacierda and former chief growth officer Luis Sia—initially had in mind. A computer science graduate from MIT, Plaza met Sia in college through their involvement with computer science clubs. Plaza subsequently worked with Hing to develop software at local logistics firm QuadX. He and Lacierda—previously a spokesperson for late Philippine President Benigno Aquino III—joined forces in 2016 to build an analytics platform for voting behavior. Plaza says PayMongo was initially a “side project” of a short-lived software consultancy he founded in 2018 called 22 Delta Labs. He realized integrating payments was among the

WE HAD THOUSANDS OF BUSINESSES ASKING FO R T H E S O LU T I O N OV E R N I G H T. FORBES ASIA

hardest tasks for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises as they had to rely on outsourced software. “We had thousands of businesses asking for the solution overnight,” says Plaza. “We realized, why don't we actually just focus on payments?” PayMongo now not only plans to expand beyond the Philippines to other Southeast Asian countries, but also to broaden its remit by becoming a platform for scaling small businesses in the region. By year end, it plans to boost its employee strength to 300 from 200 while expanding the suite of services it offers sellers. Last August, PayMongo launched an accelerator program to help small entrepreneurs with a two-month transaction fee waiver across all PayMongo’s payment channels and free webinars on business, finance and technology. The company believes future initiatives may build off such programs. Having benefited from Y Combinator’s accelerator program and the knowledge gained from investors and partners, Plaza says PayMongo wants to do the same for other small businesses looking to grow. Besides providing “financial infrastructure for everyone,” he says the true measure of PayMongo’s success will lie in its ability to enable its employees to start their own companies. “When people who've actually helped us build this look back and say that their time in PayMongo has been instrumental in helping them succeed in their new venture, it's really this flywheel of more startup firepower, which eventually will grow the [Philippine] economy,” he says. J U LY 2 0 2 2

STRATEGIES By Giacomo Tognini

Older and Wiser

At age 60, GI U SEP PE C R I PPA accepted a buyout package and started making devices to test microchips. In February his company Technoprobe, whose clients include Apple and Samsung, finally went public.

Technoprobe founder Giuseppe Crippa

FORBES ASIA

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LAILA POZZO/TECHNOPROBE

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Giuseppe Crippa was offered a severance package from French-Italian semiconductor manufacturer STMicroelectronics (STM) in 1995. Crippa took it, ending a 35year career at the firm. But rather than settle into a life of leisurely retirement, Crippa, then 60, jumped at the opportunity to start his own company. Expanding on an idea he’d been tinkering with for half a dozen years, Crippa started Technoprobe in a small town outside of Milan to make probe cards—miniature, needle-studded discs that attach to microchips to test them out— and for the first 15 years sold them largely to his former employer. “He was very inventive,” says Stefano Felici, Technoprobe’s CEO and Crippa’s nephew, in an early March Zoom interview from the firm’s headquarters in northern Italy. “To repair a probe card, you needed to send it to America and it would take two weeks. So he came up with a process to make them in his kitchen.” Twenty-seven years after its founding, Technoprobe is now one of the two biggest makers of probe cards in the world. The tech outfit supplies the probes to a blue-chip roster of tech giants including Apple, Qualcomm, Samsung and Nvidia as well as semiconductor makers AMD, Intel and TSMC. Because modern semiconductors are so complex, each chip requires its own probe card to check it for any deficiencies. After they’ve been probed and any issues have been fixed, the chips can then be mass produced without a hitch, ending up in the latest smartphones, laptops and electric cars. Probe cards can carry as many as 50,000 metal pins, each spaced about one sixhundredth of an inch apart. “I liken it to acupuncture,” says Amanda Scarnati, a research analyst at Citigroup who covers semiconductors and probe cards. “These really tiny, thin needles sit down on the chip and make sure everything is working.”

FORBES ASIA

17 S T R AT EG I E S

Last year, Technoprobe finally overtook its leading competitor, Livermore, California-based FormFactor. The firm posted net income of $136 million on $446 million revenues in 2021, beating out the $436 million sales recorded by FormFactor's comparable probe card division. Technoprobe, which is now run by Crippa’s nephew and son as CEO and chairman respectively, took advantage of its recent growth to go public on the Euronext Growth Milan stock exchange in February. The IPO turned Crippa, who stepped down as CEO in 2017 and is now 87, and his family into one of the richest in Italy, worth nearly $4 billion thanks to their 75% stake in the firm. Showing that age is no barrier, he was one of eight new billionaires this year including Marvy Finger and William Franke who were 80 or older. There is no sign of a slowdown as companies like Apple and Samsung churn out new phones and tablets each year, and automakers use probe cards to help pack new cars with screens and sensors. “You’re putting multiple different chips closer together so that your smartphone can be smaller and thinner and lighter,” says Scarnati. “You have to test all of the pieces. And that means you need more probe cards.” Born in a small town northeast of Milan in 1935, Crippa grew up during World War II. His childhood involved taking shelter during air raids in a hole in the ground under the apartment block where he and his family lived. “To relieve the tension, me and the other kids would pass out candies to everyone hiding with us while we waited for the all clear,” he told local news outlet Merate Online in June. After the war, Crippa attended a technical high school in nearby Bergamo and later got his first job at engineering firm Breda. He made his first foray in the world of microchips in 1960—at age 25—when he started working at semiconductor firm SGS after seeing a job announcement in the newspaper Corriere Della Sera. That same year, SGS formed a joint venture with Mountain View-based Fairchild Semiconductor, which had been cofounded five years earlier by tech pioneer Gordon Moore. In 1962, SGS decided to send Crippa to Silicon Valley to learn about the firm’s groundbreaking technology and bring it back to Italy. He returned to Italy in 1963 and helped launch the first production line of silicon transistors in Europe, the start of a decades-long career at SGS, which later became known as STM.

“ TO R E PA I R A P R O B E C A R D, YO U N E E D E D TO S E N D I T TO A M E R I C A A N D I T WO U L D TA K E T WO W E E KS . S O H E C A M E U P W I T H A P R O C E S S TO M A K E T H E M I N H I S K I TC H E N .”

S T R AT EG I E S

Decades later, Crippa began tinkering with probe cards in the kitchen of his countryside home. To him, there was an obvious market opportunity: all of his employer’s probe cards came from American suppliers. At the time, probe cards were relatively low-quality consumables that required repairs after use. His then-19-year-old son, Cristiano, soon joined him and together the father-and-son duo bought some tools— microscopes and cutting machines—and by 1993 they had taken over the garage, attic and basement, hiring the firm’s first two employees. (Crippa’s wife, Mariarosa, also pitched in with administrative help.) “I have these memories of the 1990s of the first employees walking around the house and using any available space,” Roberto Crippa, who was then in his early teens, told the Voci di Impresa podcast in March 2021. FORBES ASIA

In 1995, having reached retirement age, Crippa decided to call it quits at STM and took a severance package. The cash from his STM severance allowed Crippa to formally establish Technoprobe and finally ditch his home office, moving to an 8,600-square-foot facility in nearby Cernusco Lombardone with about 10 employees in 1996. Soon, the rest of the family joined: his nephew Stefano Felici, fresh out of college with a degree in electrical engineering and communications, in 1999; and his youngest son, Roberto, by then a chemical engineer, in 2002. Technoprobe grew quickly, expanding to France in 2001 and Singapore in 2004. Four decades after his own trip to the Golden State, Crippa sent his nephew Felici to California to open Technoprobe’s first U.S. office in San Jose in 2007, the same year the firm also began developing smaller, more advanced probe cards in-house. For many years, STM was Technoprobe’s sole customer: it was only in 2010 that the firm won over more clients, with new locations in Taiwan and the Philippines. “We started to really break into the market with the largest foundries in Asia,” says Felici. “By 2017, our efforts also bore fruit in America.” In 2019, the firm embarked on a $100 million investment plan to expand its market share, spending $40 million to acquire Van Nuys, California-based Microfabrica, which makes 3D-printed components for probe cards. “We integrated their technologies and this allowed us to widen the gap with our competitor,” says Felici. J U LY 2 0 2 2

TECHNOPROBE

A probe card is an electromechanical interface that allows a chip to be tested when it is still on wafer.

LAILA POZZO/TECHNOPROBE

S T R AT EG I E S

That acquisition has helped Technoprobe make tinier, more efficient probe cards just as chips have gotten smaller and more complex. According to Moore’s Law, the number of components in an integrated circuit doubles roughly every two years. That also applies to probe cards—and new technologies currently in the works paint a bright future for Technoprobe. “Moore's law goes that the geometry of the chip shrinks smaller and smaller,” says Charles Shi, a semiconductor analyst at investment bank Needham. “Probe cards need to keep up with the pace.” The next frontier in semiconductors are chiplets, smaller chips stacked upon each other to build faster, more powerful units that go into the latest phones, computers and more. In March, a group of the world’s largest tech firms— including AMD, Google, Intel, Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook), Microsoft, Qualcomm, Samsung and TSMC—launched a consortium to standardize chiplet technology for the next generation of gadgets. That means Technoprobe—and its leading rival, FormFactor—are both ramping up capaciJ U LY 2 0 2 2

Stefano Felici, Technoprobe's CEO and the nephew of founder Giuseppe Crippa.

ty to match the greater needs of their customers. And while Technoprobe has taken market share at Intel, traditionally a FormFactor shop, the two firms share the same clients because every large chip maker wants to ensure a more secure and diversified supply. “This is a very small industry. We know the Crippa family pretty well,” says Mike Slessor, Formfactor’s CEO. “We do want to continue to make sure we’ve got our competitive juices flowing, but what they’ve done with a private familyowned company is pretty impressive.” Felici is equally complimentary, acknowledging that the industry is a virtual duopoly: “They have a product that can compete with ours, but sometimes small details can make a difference.” Still, there’s more than enough demand to keep both firms powering ahead. Felici points to the growing complexity of cars, replete with tablets and touchscreens, as one of the many reasons for the industry’s growth. “Cars now have computers and graphic cards...and those chips need to be tested. That means more business for us.” FORBES ASIA

Bankers Without Borders THE FINTECH 50

was the summer of 2018, and Ham Serunjogi, a 24-year-old Ugandan immigrant, thought the pitch he was making to a Palo Alto venture capital firm was going well. He had explained how his fintech startup, Chipper Cash, would enable African consumers to send money to each other, across national borders, more cheaply and easily than the antiquated banking system—a sort of Venmo for the continent. Then came a question from one of the partners: “Why don’t you go look for donations and grants to fund this?” Because, Serunjogi replied, this will be a profit-making business. The clueless partner persisted: “Why don’t you talk to Unicef or an impact investing firm?” Serunjogi discreetly declines to name the firm, or to say which VC later told him that “regardless of what the metrics are, I have to apply a discount to this business because it’s in Africa.” Those memories still sting, even though Chipper Cash has now raised $300 million from a roster of blue-chip VCs, most recently in November at a $2.2 billion valuation. “These were things I’d have to take with a straight face. But it was outrageous, and it still is,” Serunjogi says from the San Francisco office where he, cofounder Maijid Moujaled and nearly a fifth of the company’s 350 employees are based. The two founders each have an estimated 10% stake in Chipper, translating into paper fortunes north of $200 million. Sheel Mohnot, a former partner at 500 Startups—Chipper Cash’s first backer—chalks up some early investor resistance to ignorance about Africa. “No one was investing in Africa at the time,” he says. That has changed. Per CB Insights, venture capitalists invested $1.5 billion in African fintech companies last year, up sevenfold from 2020. Sub-Saharan Africans today have 605 million registered mobile money accounts—

FORBES ASIA

By Jeff Kauflin

Ham Serunjogi

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ETHAN PINES FOR FORBES

The Fintech 50 The list of America's most innovative startups in personal finance, investing, payments and crypto. All 50 companies are private and have headquarters or substantial operations in the U.S. For the full list, go to forbes.com/fintech/2022.

COALITION INSURANCE FUNDING RAISED: $520 MIL

COLUMNØ BUSINESS TO BUSINESS BANKING FUNDING RAISED: N.A.

CREATIVE JUICEØ BUSINESS TO BUSINESS BANKING FUNDING RAISED: $20 MIL

Edited by Jeff Kauflin and Janet Novack

DIVVY HOMES REAL ESTATE FUNDING RAISED: $400 MIL

ADDEPAR

D R I V E W E A LT H Ø

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GUIDELINE

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CHIME

iCAPITAL

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FORBES ASIA

THE FINTECH 50

with which they can send cash via text message— up from 469 million in 2018. That makes the area fertile ground for more advanced consumer financial apps. Four years after its founding, Chipper Cash has 5 million registered users in seven countries, including Uganda, Ghana and Nigeria. It offers not only low-cost money transfers but bill payment, crypto trading and the ability to buy U.S. stocks. Excluding crypto transactions, it booked north of $75 million in revenue in 2021, compared with $18 million in 2020. It is also one of dozens of newcomers on this year’s Forbes Fintech 50. The idea for Chipper Cash was seeded when high-school-age Serunjogi saw the problems his father encountered trying to move money through Africa’s ossified banking system. Serunjogi’s family lived in Gayaza, a Ugandan town 16km outside Kampala, the capital. His parents owned a farm, and his father also ran an IT operation helping local businesses set up networks. Though hardly rich, the family sent Serunjogi and his two brothers to a private high school and enrolled them in a competitive swim club. In 2010, Serunjogi, then 16, made the Ugandan Youth Olympic team. After having problems completing a bank transfer, his father was forced to fly to South Africa with an envelope full of cash to pay his son’s swim coach while they were training there. After high school, Serunjogi followed his older brother to Grinnell, a small liberal arts college in Iowa known for its strong academics, where both swam varsity. At Grinnell he met Moujaled, a Ghanaian computer science major who had started a popular student coding group. Almost immediately, the two began talking about developing an African money transfer app. But first they wanted real-world tech experience and needed work visas. So during his junior year Serunjogi sent cold emails to Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg and snagged an internship with Facebook, which turned into a full-time job in Dublin after he graduated in 2016. In the spring of 2018, Serunjogi texted Moujaled, who was working as a software engineer in San Francisco, to say it was time to get going. Serunjogi quit his job and moved into Moujaled’s studio apartment, sleeping on an air mattress in the kitchenette. The two used their combined savings of less than $30,000 and Moujaled’s ongoing salary as seed capital. They launched a test version of their app in July 2018, letting customers send money from Uganda to Ghana for free. They took pitches to more than 50 VC firms until, in November 2018, 500 Startups agreed to invest $150,000. Before the papers were signed,

THE FINTECH 50

Mohnot wired $40,000 to Chipper after Serunjogi told him he was about to miss rent. “I will be eternally grateful to him for that,” Serunjogi says. Chipper’s free, easy-to-use app was a big improvement over the available alternatives. For example, Kenya’s M-Pesa, which launched in 2007, charges 1% to 2% for many domestic transfers. By mid2019 Chipper Cash was available in Uganda, Ghana, Kenya and Rwanda. It soon expanded to Nigeria, Africa’s biggest market with more than 200 million people, and by the end of the year, it had 600,000 customers. It also introduced a foreign-exchange markup fee of 2% to 5% to start generating revenue. As bitcoin rose from $14,000 to $20,000 in the fall of 2020, Chipper began to let users buy and sell bitcoin and ether, establishing a second lucrative line of business: trading fees. It reached a $2.2 billion valuation in late 2021, with investment from firms including Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX, Ribbit Capital and Bezos Expeditions. Transactions grew from $200 million in the first quarter of 2021 to $1.6 billion 12 months later. All that growth comes with added high-stakes challenges. One is liquidity: Chipper needs to make sure it has enough funds in each country to support instant transfers. When it doesn’t, transaction times can slow to a full day or longer. Money can solve that problem. A bigger worry is competition. Senegalbased startup Wave offers similar services (albeit in different countries so far) and notched a $1.7 billion valuation last year. Other remittance companies such as Remitly and Wise don’t yet let people send money from one African country to another, but there’s nothing stopping them from entering the market. For now, Serunjogi is focused on maintaining Chipper’s steep growth, moving to profitability— and helping Africans while doing so. Customers benefit, he says, when they can move money easily and have new ways to invest and build wealth. “I’m a deep believer in the role of entrepreneurship and capitalism in improving the lives of people who live in developing countries.”

The Fintech 50 MORTYØ

RAMP

REAL ESTATE

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ØNEW TO THE LIST

CASH CAPITALS Only about 40% of Africa’s 1.4 billion people are considered “banked”—meaning they have access to, and use, a bank—making the continent rich territory for fintech startups looking to bring financial access to hundreds of millions of African mobile phones. Here are some of the most and least financially served nations— and the apps they’re banking on.

FORBES ASIA

Morocco • Population (2020): 36.9 million • 29% banked • Most popular banking app: CIH (Crédit Immobilier et Hôtelier) Mobile

Egypt • 102 million • 33% banked • NBE (National Bank of Egypt) Mobile

Nigeria • 206 million • 40% banked • Kuda, mobile banking

Kenya • 53.7 million • 82% banked • M-Pesa, mobile money service owned by Vodafone

South Africa • 59.3 million • 69% banked • Capitec, mobile banking

J U LY 2 0 2 2

NEWCOMERS

Half of the startups on our seventh annual list of America’s most innovative fintech firms are first-timers, reflecting both the money and energy flowing into the industry and its maturity—many new founders are alumni of other successful fintech startups. By Nina Bambysheva, Kevin Dowd and Jeff Kauflin

Esteban Castaño 31

Sima Gandhi 39

FOUNDER AND CEO, GROW CREDIT

COFOUNDER AND CEO, TRM LABS

COFOUNDER AND CEO, CREATIVE JUICE

Born in Cameroon and raised in France, Bayen has worked at gaming and design startups; in 2009, he helped created Free App a Day, an iPhone app discovery site. It attracted 12 million users before being put out of business in 2013 by an Apple policy change. In 2018 he started Los Angeles–based Grow, which takes a novel approach to helping Americans with thin or poor credit histories: a “virtual” Mastercard (no plastic) is used to pay monthly subscriptions such as Netflix, with money pulled automatically from the user’s bank account. Those timely payments are reported to credit bureaus, boosting users’ scores. Grow charges a monthly fee based on the charge limit.

A former McKinsey consultant and tech lead at a nonprofit aimed at reducing youth unemployment, Castaño dropped out of Stanford’s M.B.A. program in 2018 to cofound an NFT gaming company. It quickly morphed into a blockchain intelligence firm that helps financial institutions and government agencies investigate money laundering, crypto fraud and other financial crimes. TRM’s software can screen wallets and monitor transactions across more than 1 million digital assets on 26 blockchains. In November it raised $60 million (at a $600 million valuation) from financial powerhouses including Amex Ventures, Visa, Citi Ventures and Jump Capital.

As head of business development and strategy at Plaid—she was the company’s 15th employee—Gandhi saw that many traditional banks had a poor idea of how the booming creator economy really works. Enter Creative Juice, which puts a twist on the neobank model: In addition to offering bank accounts and other financial tools built for creators, it cuts checks of between $25,000 and $500,000 in exchange for a share of creators’ future revenue. After partnering with YouTube megastar MrBeast last year on an initial $2 million creator fund, Gandhi unveiled a $50 million follow-up in April. The startup’s investors include Twitch cofounder Justin Kan and music mogul Scooter Braun.

Annie Hockey 32 William Hockey 32

Michael Rangel 35

Rick Song 31

COFOUNDER AND CEO, NOVO

COFOUNDER AND CEO, PERSONA

COFOUNDERS AND CO-CEOS, COLUMN

By age 23, this son of Cuban immigrants was leading the trading desk at Fairholme Capital Management, a $20 billion Miami-based investment firm. But in 2011, at age 24, Rangel was in a serious car accident that left him in a coma for 10 days. “I had to relearn to walk, eat and talk,” he says. After a doctor-defying recovery, he teamed with cofounder Tyler McIntyre to start Novo, which aims to take on the big banks by offering free checking accounts and a host of other app-based financial tools for small businesses. Customer count climbed from 24,000 to 120,000 last year. After raising $90 million in new funding in January, Novo is now valued at $700 million.

In his first job out of college, Song worked on identity verification at Square, where he came to believe there is no one-sizefits-all solution for confirming people are who they say they are online. So in 2018, he left to start Persona, which enables businesses to mix and match from a menu of identity tools to create their own customized approach. The strategy has been rapidly winning over both customers and investors: Persona’s clients include fintech heavyweights Square, Robinhood and BlockFi, and the company’s valuation soared to $1.5 billion last September, less than two years after it first raised funding. Persona is backed by Founders Fund, Index Ventures and Coatue.

By the time they married in 2018, Annie, a Stanford M.B.A. and Bain consultant, and William, a cofounder and chief technology officer of fintech network Plaid, knew they wanted to start a business together. Last year they bought a single-branch, federally chartered bank in Chico, California, for $50 million and are using it to provide nonbank fintechs with a suite of banking services, including holding deposits, interbank transfers, wire transfers and lending. Hockey quit his job at Plaid in 2019 (he’s still on the board), and the couple is funding Column with private sales of some of his stock. Forbes estimates he still owns a Plaid stake worth $1.4 billion. J U LY 2 0 2 2

FORBES ASIA

THE FINTECH 50

Joe Bayen 46

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THE FERRARI ROMA: THE TECHNICAL LOWDOWN Engine Type: 90o V8 twin turbo Max power: 620 cv at 5,750 to 7,500 rpm Max torque: 760 Nm at 3,000 to 5,750 rpm Max engine speed: 7,500 rpm

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Performance 0 to 100 km/h: 3.4 sec 0 to 200 km/h: 9.3 sec Top speed: >320 km/h

A S I A’ S P O W E R B U S I N E S S W O M E N

PO BUSINESS WOMEN

Good Medicine I N A P O S T- PA N D E M I C W O R L D , TMC LIFE SCIENCES’

NADIAH WAN CAN REFOCUS ON BUILDING T H E M A L AY S I A N H O S P I TA L F I R M I N T O A R E G I O N A L H E A LT H C A R E L E A D E R .

BY DA N I E L L E K E E T O N - O L S E N P H OTO G R A P H S BY E I F F E L C H O N G F O R F O R B E S A S I A

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J U LY 2 0 2 2

Nadiah Wan in the mezzanine lobby of Thomson Hospital Kota Damansara’s new wing.

27 ASIA’S POWER BUSINESSWOMEN

S P E E DY R ECOV E RY The group returned to earnings growth in 2021 after sales plunged at the start of the pandemic. (IN RINGGIT MILLIONS)

Revenue

Net profit

200 150 100 50 0 2016

2017

2018

2019

2020*

2021

*In 2020, TMC Life Science changed the dates of its financial year, resulting in a 10-month year from Sept. 1 to June 30. Source: TMC Life Sciences

FORBES ASIA

March 2021, but have declined by a third since then in line with Malaysia’s broader healthcare index, dragged down by global uncertainty. Going forward TMC should benefit from macro trends— that include Malaysia’s demographic shift to an aging population—and by aggressively positioning itself as a market leader, says Tina Banerjee, a Bangalore-based healthcare analyst published on the online platform Smartkarma. “The company is consistently witnessing increasing patient volume,” Banerjee says by email. “Recovery of fertility business and [the Kota Damansara hospital] bed addition should further accelerate the growth momentum.” Wan noted in an interview earlier this year that the new wing should mean double-digit topline growth in 2022, though ramping up capacity—with substantial investment in new equipment— will weigh on net profit for a few years. Healthcare spending in Malaysia is projected to grow 26% from $16 billion this year to $20 billion by 2025, and J U LY 2 0 2 2

ZAKEE MAN STUDIO/THOMSON HOSPITAL KOTA DAMANSARA

ASIA’S POWER BUSINESSWOMEN

adiah Wan had been running TMC The first few months of the pandemic rattled TMC. Net Life Sciences for a little over a year profit plunged 43% to 13 million ringgit ($3 million) in the when the pandemic hit in early 2020. ten months ending in June 2020 (the full reporting period Virtually overnight, Malaysia’s bor- for that year). Its fertility business was particularly hit hard ders slammed shut, cutting off inter- by the slowdown in medical tourism. Revenue from international patients—a lucrative source national patients, which had made up about 15% of sales of income for the Malaysia-listed before the pandemic, plummeted as Covid-19 led to regionhospital group—while domestic travel wide travel restrictions and quarantines. restrictions curtailed appointments and elective surgeries. TMC has since charted a steady recovery. Patient numShe quickly reprioritized, juggling ambitious expansion bers are returning to pre-pandemic levels as demand for plans with the public health emergency. TMC’s fertility and hospital services picks up, alongside a Now, as Covid-19 recedes, TMC’s 38-year-old executive growing trickle of medical tourists since Malaysia’s borders director and group CEO has breathing room to pick up fully reopened on April 1. where she left off: to make TMC one of the biggest private For the first nine months of the financial year ended in hospitals in Southeast Asia. When she spoke by video from March, net profit rose 9% to 18 million ringgit (year on Kuala Lumpur in late May, Wan had recently overseen the year), on a 17% increase in sales to 173 million ringgit. opening of a new wing in TMC’s flagship Thomson Hospi- Shares recovered to pre-pandemic levels to hit 0.8 ringgit in tal Kota Damansara. The upgrade at the private hospital will triple the bed count TMC Life Sciences’s flagship Thomson Hospital Kota Damansara in Kuala Lumpur. to 600 and bolster its range of services, including its world-class fertility treatments, with a new cancer center and more specialist outpatient clinics. That growth will also give a boost to TMC’s parent company, the Singapore-based Thomson Medical, which owns 70% of TMC. Thomson Medical, listed in Singapore, is itself controlled by Singapore billionaire Peter Lim. However, she thinks the pandemic did bring a new mindset to the healthcare industry. “What Covid did was it made a lot of people in healthcare realize we need to be a lot more adaptive and dynamic,” Wan says. “Healthcare is a very risk-averse industry but, with Covid, there was simply no choice, so people had to forge ahead with whatever resources they had.”

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ASIA’S POWER BUSINESSWOMEN

reach $176 billion in Southeast Asia over the same period, according to data firm Statista. To tap that demand for medical services, last year TMC opened two clinics, one for gastric and reflux and another for heart palpitations, which brought the total number of outpatient specialty clinics to 154. In addition to its pharmacy in southern Johor Bahru, just across from Singapore, TMC is building an integrated medical hub that will eventually comprise a 500-bed tertiary hospital, medical tower and retail mall. It is scheduled to open in 2028. Yet Wan expects assisted reproduction to remain the lodestone of its services, projecting it will eventually contribute about 40% of revenue. TMC, an early pioneer in fertility treatment in Malaysia—holding the nation’s record for the highest number of babies conceived by in vitro fertilization by a single practice—operates six fertility centers across the country. While Malaysia’s share of the medical tourism industry, valued at $362 million in 2019, is just a fraction of Thailand’s $8.6 billion market, TMC has carved a niche among female patients from China, Indonesia and Singapore. She says international clients are attracted by TMC’s proximity and high-quality services, some of which—in the case of IVF and egg freezing—are difficult or illegal to obtain at home. Wan takes pride in TMC’S training of fertility specialists for the region. “With fertility, you do need a certain kind of personality,” she says. “There’s the clinical part but there’s also the psychosocial part where you’re counseling your patients, reassuring them.” A Harvard graduate in biochemical sciences with a master’s degree in public health nutrition from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Wan returned home after getting her education to Kuala Lumpur to work with Boston Consulting Group. (She had interned with the company in the U.S. as an undergraduate.) After two years there, she spent another five with Malaysia’s Sunway Medical Centre, rising to chief operating officer of clinical services, before joining TMC in 2017.

M E D I C A L CO STS Graying populations are expected to push up healthcare spending in Malaysia and across the region. (IN $ BILLIONS)

Malaysia

Southeast Asia

200 Estimate

Forecast

2021

2022

150

100

0 Source: Statista

FORBES ASIA

2023

2024

2025

Though she says her passion for healthcare has pushed her to explore different avenues of growth, especially healthtech, Wan says her main priority is building a sustainable business. She notes that hospitals need to have long-term plans. “When you talk about all the investments that go into healthcare and how long it takes to gestate, and you’re serving a population over lifecycles, you need a business that can stay,” she says. Thomson Medical, where Wan is an executive director, in 2020 set up a new arm called Thomson X to partner with healthtech startups like Singapore-based WhiteCoat for a one-stop app for the group’s obstetrics, gynecology and pediatric patients. Wan envisions other possible collaborations with the public hospital sector, and building an integrated health platform focused on patients’ emotional wellbeing and preventative care. “When we talk about accountability, patient accountability or ownership of their healthcare journey is very important.” With the pandemic waning, she reflects on lessons from navigating the challenging environment. “When you become a CEO, whole boundaries between work and life basically disappear,” she says. “One of the things that I’m starting to learn is to say no,” she adds. “In the beginning you feel like you have a lot to contribute and [obligations] tend to kind of start piling up. At some point you need to start thinking about the things you’re committing your time to because essentially your time becomes your biggest constraint.” J U LY 2 0 2 2

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THE PROFILE

THAILAND'S 50 RICHEST

Adisak Sukumvitaya parlayed Jay Mart from a single store into a tech-driven retailing and financial services group with a total market cap of $6.5 billion. And he's still dreaming big.

Hypergrowth Hero BY NAAZNEEN KARMALI

P H OTO G R A P H S BY ANDRE MALERBA FOR FORBES ASIA

33 THAILAND'S 50 RICHEST

THAILAND'S 50 RICHEST

When Thailand’s stock exchange recently rejigged its SET50 Index, an index of the biggest companies by market cap, Adisak Sukumvitaya emerged a winner. Admitted were his flagship company Jay Mart plus its debt collection and management unit JMT Network Services, both among the hottest Thai stocks in the past year—up 54% and 74%, respectively—while the index fell more than 3%. The double-entry was a seminal event for the Jay Mart founder and CEO, who opened his first shop, selling household appliances, in 1989. “For me, it’s a big reward in my entrepreneurial journey of 33 years,” says Adisak, 66, at Jay House, his sprawling mansion in a gated enclave 30 kilometers from Bangkok’s central business district. The walls are adorned with paintings by local artists. Displayed more discreetly are artworks by Adisak himself, who says he paints occasionally to relax. From his retailing roots, Adisak has grown that single store into the Jaymart group, with the listed Jay Mart as its flagship holding company. Jay Mart has stakes in three publicly traded companies and a clutch of privately held firms. The company’s businesses largely fall into three main buckets: retail, finance and tech. They span the spectrum from distributing and retailing mobile phones, IT products and electrical appliances to debt management and collection, financial services, coffee shops and tech. Jaymart Mobile sells mobile phones through 200 stores across Thailand. Jay Mart’s finance arms offer consumer loans and non-life insurance. Its tech unit J Ventures develops emerging tech such as AI, blockchain and big data and is building a metaverse platform. Amid Thailand's slow economic recovery, Jay Mart produced a record 2021 net profit of 2.5 billion baht ($71 million), a threefold rise from the previous year, on revenue of 12.3 billion baht. Jay Mart’s soaring shares propelled Adisak—who with his wife Yuvadee Pong-Acha, is a major shareholder—into the ranks of the 50 richest FORBES ASIA

with an estimated fortune of $835 million. Jay Mart and its associated companies—property developer JAS Asset, JMT Network and direct selling firm Singer Thailand—have a combined market cap of $6.5 billion. “From small beginnings, Adisak has grown Jay Mart exponentially, building it through strategic acquisitions and partnerships,” says veteran banker Kongkiat Opaswongkarn, CEO, Asia Plus Securities, the lead investment bank for the group’s three IPOs. The firm also orchestrated Jay Mart’s 2015 acquisition of a 25% stake in Singer Thailand, the local unit of the storied American company whose founder invented the sewing machine in 1850.

“In n bus sin nes ss, I nev ver say no. en othe ers say ‘no,’ In fact,, whe ay ‘yes.’” I sa Since the start of the pandemic, the tycoon has worked from home, doing board meetings on Zoom. Not only does that save him the commute to Jaymart Building, the corporate headquarters, but it has forced him, he says, to give senior executives more of a free hand. He’s now building an extension to his house with a conference room for meetings. “Working remotely suits me,” he declares. Adisak has kept making connections throughout the pandemic. As Thailand’s banks struggled with rising nonperforming loans, Adisak saw an

P OW E R P O I N T Jay Mart’s net profit hit a record 2.5 billion baht last year. Net profit -1

(IN BAHT BILLIONS)

Revenue 1

2018

2019

2020

2021 Source: Stock Exchange of Thailand J U LY 2 0 2 2

35 THAILAND'S 50 RICHEST

Adisak's passion for art is reflected in the numerous paintings by local artists displayed at Jay House, his sprawling mansion.

J U LY 2 0 2 2

opportunity to boost JMT Network’s business and formed two joint ventures with Bangkokbased Kasikorn Bank for debt collection and asset management. He converted finance arm J Fintech into KB J Capital, a consumer finance joint venture with Korean credit card company KB Kookmin Card. Jay Mart’s software unit J Ventures bagged an investment from Japanese IT firm TIS. Adisak has recently forayed into renewables with a partnership between listee Gunkul Dhumrongpiyawut’s Gunkul Engineering, Jay Mart and Singer Thailand that plans to sell solar panels. The biggest deal was with Skytrain billionaire Keeree Kanjapanas’s BTS Group, which invested 17.5 billion baht to acquire 25% of both Jay Mart and Singer Thailand. Adisak, friends with Keeree’s son Kavin for two decades, says they hope to benefit from cross-selling synergies as the two companies, between them, have 17 million customers. Jay Mart could set up shops for appliances and mobile phones at BTS train sta-

tions, which could also become a sales channel for Singer Thailand, says FSS International Investment Advisory Securities analyst Naruedom Mujjalinkool, who is based in Bangkok. With the new partners and planned investments of 30 billion baht this year, Adisak asserts, “we can now grow three times faster and reach the next level.” His target is to grow Jay Mart’s net profit 50% annually over the next three years. “The top line doesn’t mean anything without profits. You can’t keep standing for too long without profits,” he asserts.

disak was born in Bangkok but moved to Yala, Thailand’s southernmost province, where his father opened a shoe repair shop. At age 17, Adisak went to Iowa for a year as a high school exchange student. The year was a turning point in his life, he says. “It was such a different world. I started to dream in English.” FORBES ASIA

THAILAND'S 50 RICHEST

During his American stint, he took to sports— baseball, wrestling, golf—which became an abiding interest. On Saturdays he plays soccer with friends and company executives at a private, 1.2ha sports field he built next to his home. “When I was young, I had nowhere to play,” he recounts. After getting a degree in agricultural economics from Bangkok’s Kasetsart University, Adisak wanted to return to the U.S. for graduate studies but couldn’t afford it. So he enrolled in a master’s program at Kasetsart on a scholarship, supplementing it by working on campus doing market research. His first job in 1982 was in investment research at Thai securities firm Tisco, where he met his wife Yuvadee. A couple of years later, he shifted to consumer durables giant Philips as an assistant product manager. Four years later, Adisak ventured out on his own. “It was a risky move but I asked myself—do you want to remain poor or do you want to give a better life to your family?” he says. After studying the business model of Singer, which sold sewing machines and household appliances on a hirepurchase plan (also known as an installment plan), Adisak was confident that there was room for another player. The couple pooled their combined savings of 2 million baht to set up Jay Mart, replicating the Singer model but selling other brands of electronics and appliances, such as Panasonic, Hitachi and Philips. The company’s name was inspired by Kmart, where Adisak shopped when in Iowa. “Jay” came from the initials of their names, including daughter Juthamas. It’s also the nickname of their son Ekachai, born the year the first Jay Mart store opened.

In 1992, Jay Mart added mobile phones, offering brands such as Nokia and Ericsson on an installment basis. Sales picked up but before long Adisak was blindsided by the entry of Japanese financial services company Aeon. Realizing he could not match Aeon’s low-interest loans, Adisak decided to start another business: debt collection. He figured that he could deploy Jay Mart’s field staff, who were experienced in collecting installment payments, to collect unsecured consumer loans for other companies. Adisak says that seeing bigger mobile phone sellers shut down taught him to never depend on just one business. But one of his bets went badly wrong after he invested 2 million baht in a venture set up by some friends to manufacture television sets. The business was mismanaged and within three years it was on the brink of closure, with a debt of 30 million baht. With his reputation in jeopardy, Adisak agreed to take on the entire debt and began looking urgently for ways to pay it off. He approached Aeon, offering to structure a hire-purchase model for mobile phones with an undertaking to buy them back if customers defaulted. The 400 baht service fee Jay Mart received on every phone financed by Aeon earned the company 700 million baht over seven years. This paid off the debt and helped grow Jay Mart into one of Thailand’s top mobile phone distributors. Adisak says he’s looked for opportunities in every crisis. After the 1997-98 Asian financial

“We e can now w grrow three e times faster d re each h th he ne ext levell.” and

N E T WO R K E F F EC T The listed Jay Mart holds stakes in a variety of businesses.

Jaymart Mobile

Beans & Brown

J Ventures

JAS Asset*

JMT Network Services*

KB J Capital

Singer Thailand*

99%

95%

67%

66%

54%

50%

25%

Mobile phone distribution

Food and beverage

Technology

Property developer

Debt collection and management

Consumer loans

Home and commercial appliances

Source: Jay Mart

FORBES ASIA

*Listed

J U LY 2 0 2 2

crisis, when others hunkered down, he opened more stores. He approached retailing giant Central group, which offered to lease him a car park at one of its Big C hypermarkets. “In business,” says Adisak, “I never say no. In fact, when others say ‘no,’ I say ‘yes.’” He converted the car park into a mini mall of small shops for phone vendors. Tenants were initially hard to find and the business made a loss the first year. To kickstart it, he opened 20 mobile phone stores under different names, a ploy that created enough of a buzz to draw in tenants. This was expanded to 40 locations under IT Junction, a thriving division within Jay Mart, which in 2015 was spun off as property development arm JAS Asset. By 2002, Adisak was eyeing a public listing for his flagship to grow more quickly. But Jay Mart’s IPO application was rejected that year and again in 2005 as the company then couldn’t meet the regulatory requirements. Adisak says his wife, who has been working with him since 1994, advised him to forget it, but he refused. “I knew that if I surrendered, I would have no future,” he recalls. He succeeded in 2009, raising 133 million baht through an IPO that valued Jay Mart at 540 million baht, a valuation that has since soared to 79 billion baht. The IPO funds were used to pay off loans and to expand the debt collection unit, which he

—Additional reporting by Anuradha Raghunathan FORBES ASIA

37 THAILAND'S 50 RICHEST

Jay Mart is one of the country's largest mobile phone distributors with a network of 200 stores such as this one.

took public in 2012. JMT’s IPO raised 333 million baht and valued the company at 3.6 billion baht. In the past decade, JMT’s market cap has grown 30 times to 107 billion baht. Three years later, Jay Mart spun off JAS Asset and listed it at a valuation of 1 billion baht. In 2015, Jay Mart made a landmark acquisition, paying 950 million baht for a 25% stake in Singer Thailand, a company Adisak had long admired and whose business model he had successfully replicated. “Our CFO said we had no money, but I couldn’t let it go,” he recalls. He raised funds through a mix of bank loans and selling part of Jay Mart’s stake in JMT. “Singer has been in Thailand for 133 years. It’s exactly a century older than Jay Mart,” says Adisak, adding that he’s now preparing to list its finance arm SG Capital. Five years ago, Adisak expanded into fintech, establishing J Ventures under Jay Mart. In 2018, it launched the country’s first initial coin offering by a public company, selling 100 million JFinCoins within three days. Adisak sees himself as Thailand’s crypto pioneer and is confident that the country’s recent regulation banning cryptocurrencies will be temporary. Adisak had initially planned to retire this year, but after the capital injection from BTS, he says that plan was postponed for a couple of years. He’s grooming his U.S.-educated son Ekachai, who’s been working with him for eight years and is Jay Mart’s deputy CEO, to succeed him. “He’s the right guy at the right time,” he avers. At present, Adisak is focused on delivering his growth goal and making every business a market leader in its segment. “I don’t believe in eating dust, but making dust,” he says, a reference to a car race on a dirt track where the vehicle in the lead creates a dust storm. Challenges abound. Naruedom of FSS points out that while JMT Network is already one of the biggest players in debt collection, the emergence of more competitors bidding aggressively for nonperforming loans could chip away at profits. Moreover, an economic slowdown could impact sales of household appliances. Adisak says the crises he’s weathered in the past have taught him never to underestimate any situation. While wealth allows him to indulge in such passions as collecting fine wines, Adisak says he hasn’t forgotten his roots; he prefers street food to fine dining. With two of his biggest companies in the SET 50, Adisak is aware that he’s now in the ring with the big boys: “But it’s only the first step. I want to step up and win.”

PROMOTION

Leading the Green Finance Revolution in Thailand HSBC is helping its Thai private banking clients kickstart their sustainability journey. As the net zero transition becomes top of mind for business leaders and policymakers around the world, aﬄuent investors in Asia are gradually recognising the importance of incorporating sustainable solutions into their portfolios. In Thailand, high-net-worth (HNW) and ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) individuals and their families are beginning to incorporate ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) factors into their investment decisions, says Saranya Arunsilp, Countr y Head, Thailand, Global Private Banking and Wealth Management at HSBC. However, as the bank ramps up its eﬀorts to educate clients on the importance of sustainable finance, awareness of ESG is growing. “ESG investments are gaining popularity among Thai investors as HSBC has been educating our clients and offering them relevant sustainable finance solutions,” explains Arunsilp. “Our clients are starting to understand that sustainability is important for growing their business and investments, but it will take some time before they see the performance associated with sustainable products.” A more conducive regulatory environment is als o e xp e c te d to f uel demand for sustainable investments. Earlier this year, the Stock Exchange of Thailand introduced a Sustainability Reporting Guide for listed companies, together with ESG metrics for each industry group. HSBC is well-positioned to capture a big slice of this growing green market as it has established an enviable track record of completing sustainable finance deals in Thailand. The bank recently supported a prominent global petrochemical company in issuing its debut THB10 billion (US$283 million) Sustainability-Linked Bond (SLB). This deal was the largest THB SLB issuance in Thailand. HSBC was also the Joint Lead Manager and Joint Bookrunner for the first green bond issued by a Thai policy institution, the Bank

Saranya Arunsilp, Country Head, Thailand, Global Private Banking and Wealth Management at HSBC

for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives. The proceeds were then used to fund forestry and environmental conservation projects. In another milestone, the bank introduced the first Green Deposits in the country for two large Thai corporates. The Green Deposit aims to encourage Thai companies to fulﬁll their sustainability objectives by investing their surplus cash balances with HSBC, which will then be allocated to eligible businesses and projects. Furthermore, HSBC completed a trio of firsts for a Thai client by executing their inaugural Sustainabilit y-Linked Loan, Sustainability-Linked Supply Chain Financing Solution and Sustainability-Linked Hedge.

A Deeper Presence on the Ground To more effectively service its HNW and UHNW clients, HSBC opened a new private banking business in Thailand last year. The move is timely as rising affluence in the country is driving demand for wealth planning, investment diversification and international banking.

The expected rebound in intra-regional trade and activity is also expected to lead to the creation of private wealth in Thailand as businesses expand. Against this backdrop, international banks like HSBC—with a global footprint and full range of capabilities to serve the fast-changing needs of affluent clients both onshore and oﬀshore—will have a competitive edge in the country. In recent years, The Bank of Thailand has also introduced a series of measures to relax foreign exchange regulation and encourage greater flexibility in the financial markets under the Capital Account Liberalisation Master Plan, opening up opportunities for selective oﬀshore investments. The new private bank is HSBC’s second onshore business in Southeast Asia after Singapore, and will provide Thai clients with access to international capital markets by leveraging its existing infrastructure of advisory, investment methodologies, controls and systems in Asia. The Thailandbased team will cover client management and advisory services, while clients’ assets will be booked in HSBC Global Private Banking in Singapore, a preferred wealth management hub for Southeast Asian HNW individuals. “We successfully launched our onshore private banking business in Thailand last year, and second onshore private banking business in ASEAN, to offer a distinctive, onshore experience to ser ve growing wealth needs in Thailand. Our team is able to leverage the HSBC Group’s expertise and global network to serve our Thai friends better,” says Arunsilp. A s private bank ing is ver y much a people-centric business, Arunsilp believes that it is important to have a dedicated team on the ground to develop a more intimate relationship with clients, and better understand their unique wealth needs. The expansion of the private banking business in Thailand is part of HSBC’s broader strategy to grow its wealth management footprint in Southeast Asia and invest in its wealth capabilities as it aims to provide

PROMOTION

Giorgio Gamba, CEO of HSBC Thailand and Saranya Arunsilp, Country Head, Thailand, Global Private Banking and Wealth Management at HSBC

best-in-class products and services for clients, and deliver on its ambition to become the leading wealth manager in Asia.

Achieving Net Zero HSBC’s Thai businesses will also play their part in helping the bank achieve its target of transforming its operations and supply chain to net zero by 2030, and to do the same for financed emissions in the portfolios of its clients by 2050 or earlier. This transition will involve an investment of between US$750 billion and US$1 trillion over the next 10 years. Financing of coalfired power and thermal coal mining will also be phased out by 2030 in markets under the European Union and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and in other markets by 2040. “Achieving net zero requires significant changes. The financial services industry has an important role in ensuring that capital is allocated to support projects and investments needed to fulfill these goals,” says Giorgio Gamba, CEO of HSBC Thailand.

“The transition to a net zero economy is the key to unlocking long-term sustainable growth, protecting the financial system from climate risk and safeguarding society,” he adds.

Giorgio Gamba, CEO of HSBC Thailand

HSBC’s sustainability strategy can be boiled down to three key components: becoming a net zero bank; supporting customers in their transition journey; and unlocking new climate solutions. In doing so, the bank also wants to help transform sustainable infrastructure into a global asset class through the development of a pipeline of bankable projects. HSBC views collaboration with its clients and other stakeholders as key to achieving its sustainability objectives. Says Gamba: “In partnership with our clients, we will help develop de-carbonisation plans starting with high transition risk sectors. This will allow us to understand how they are incorporating climate change into their business and to identify how we can support their transition.”

privatebanking.hsbc.com

Disclaimer The information contained in this article has not been reviewed in the light of your individual circumstances and is for information purposes only. It does not purport to provide legal, taxation or other advice and should not be taken as such. No client or other reader should act or refrain from acting on the basis of the content of this article without seeking speciﬁc professional advice. Issued by The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited.

THE LIST

THAILAND’S 50 RICHEST

to No. 4. He was this year’s biggest dollar gainer with his wealth increasing by $2.2 billion to $11.1 billion. Sarath is proceeding apace with diversification and has inked an Thailand is welcoming back tourists, but the tide agreement between Gulf Energy Development, mobile operator Advanced Info Service and Singtel to set up data is still out for the nation’s richest, who saw their centers in Thailand. collective wealth fall nearly 6% from a year ago. There are three newcomers this year and the richest BY N A A Z N E E N K A R M A L I among them with a fortune of $835 million is Adisak Sukumvitaya, founder and CEO of Jay Mart, which was recently ourism, Thailand’s mainincluded in the SET50 Index along with stay, is gradually pickits debt collection arm JMT Network ing up with the easing of Services. Rising shares of Com7, one of restrictions to woo back Thailand’s biggest distributors of Apple foreign travelers. In the products, added two new names to the first five months of 2022, the country list. U.S.-educated Sura Khanittaweekul, attracted 1.3 million visitors, although the company’s CEO and cofounder, makes that is still a fraction of the 40 milhis debut. So does doctor and value inlion annual visitors it drew before the vestor Pongsak Thammathataree, who pandemic. Amid a sluggish economic No. 1 runs a chain of beauty clinics and has a recovery, the benchmark SET Index deDhanin Chearavanont, senior chairman, minority stake in Com7. clined just over 3% since we last meaCharoen Pokphand group The three returnees include Gunkul sured fortunes with the baht down by Dhumrongpiyawut, founder of SET12%. The combined wealth of the 50 listed Gunkul Engineering, who returns to the ranks after richest fell by nearly 6% to $151 billion from a year ago. The top three richest remain unchanged from last year. a four-year hiatus. The renewable energy company’s new The Chearavanont brothers, whose Charoen Pokphand business is in cannabis, which was recently legalized for group’s telecom arm True is awaiting regulatory approval medical and industrial use in Thailand. The other two reto conclude a merger with rival Digital Total Access Com- turnees are telecom tycoons DTAC’s Boonchai Benchamunications (DTAC), remain at number one. But their rongkul and Pete Bodharamik of Jasmine International. Despite the cutoff declining to $655 million from $737 wealth is down $3.7 billion, the biggest decline in dollar million last year, six people dropped out, including father terms, to $26.5 billion. As energy drink Red Bull’s sales continued to surge and son Somwang and Viyavood Sincharoenkul. Shares around the world, Chalerm Yoovidhya’s fortune, which of their Sri Trang Gloves (Thailand) fell amid reduced dehe shares with family, got a $1.9 billion boost. With a net mand for rubber gloves as the pandemic waned. worth of $26.4 billion, Chalerm is now a close number two. Only a dozen members of the list saw their wealth rise, Reporting by Megha Bahree, Gloria Haraito and Phisanu including energy tycoon Sarath Ratanavadi, who’s ben- Phromchanya. Editing assistance and reporting by Anuefited from his foray into telecoms and moved up one spot radha Raghunathan.

SLOW TRACK

METHODOLOGY: This list was compiled using shareholding and financial information obtained from the families and individuals, stock exchanges and analysts, the Stock Exchange of Thailand and regulatory agencies. Unlike our billionaire rankings, this list encompasses family fortunes, including those shared among extended families of multiple generations. Public fortunes were calculated based on stock prices and exchange rates as on June 17. Private companies were valued based on comparisons with similar companies that are publicly traded. The list can also include foreign citizens with business, residential or other ties to the country, or citizens who don’t reside in the country but have significant business or other ties to the country. The editors reserve the right to amend any information or remove any listees in light of new information.

ANTHONY KWAN/BLOOMBERG

T HA IL AN D’ S 50 RIC H E ST

1. CHEARAVANONT BROTHERS $26.5 BILLION CHAROEN POKPHAND GROUP

$26.4 BILLION RED BULL AGE: 71

3. CHAROEN SIRIVADHANABHAKDI Tos Chirathivat

Big Spender

$11.2 BILLION THAI BEVERAGE AGE: 78

BRENT LEWIN/BLOOMBERG

CHIRATHIVAT FAMILY

As the pandemic roiled the retail sector worldwide, the Chirathivats of Central group doubled down. In December, in what was one of their biggest overseas acquisitions to date, they inked an estimated $4.5 billion deal to buy the storied U.K. department store Selfridges in partnership with Austrian retailer Signa Holdings. The acquisition gives the group an iconic, century-old storefront on London’s famed Oxford Street along with 17 other stores. Central and Signa already co-own a portfolio of luxury department stores across Europe. Central, led by the founder’s grandson Tos Chirathivat, isn’t done yet. The group’s earmarked $6.6 billion to be invested over the next five years to expand its domestic and regional footprint both in retail and property development. Despite these growth ambitions, the family’s wealth fell nearly 9% to $10.6 billion. The family’s listed flagship Central Retail, which gets 72% of its revenue from its home market, plans to invest 100 billion baht ($2.8 billion) over the next four years to expand its retail businesses. Its ultimate aim: increase revenue and market cap 2.5 times and Ebitda 3.5 times by 2026. In 2021, the second year of the pandemic, revenue flatlined while net profit fell. But in a sign of revival, in the first quarter of 2022 the company reported a 15% year-on-year uptick in revenue to 56.3 billion baht, while net profit surged nearly 190% to 1.3 billion baht. The current market cap of the company is about 207 billion baht. Meanwhile listed property unit Central Pattana has planned a 120 billion baht investment outlay by 2026. Future projects include mixed-used developments that encompass shopping centers, residences, hotels and offices across 30 Thai provinces. It’s also eyeing new investments in Malaysia and Vietnam. Its stock is up 6% since last June, even though both revenue and net profit fell in the first quarter. —Anuradha Raghunathan

4. SARATH RATANAVADI $11.1 BILLION GULF ENERGY DEVELOPMENT AGE: 56

5. CHIRATHIVAT FAMILY $10.6 BILLION CENTRAL GROUP

6. SOMPHOTE AHUNAI $3.9 BILLION ENERGY ABSOLUTE AGE: 55

7. PRASERT PRASARTTONG-OSOTH $3.1 BILLION BANGKOK DUSIT MEDICAL SERVICES AGE: 89

CHANGE IN WEALTH KEY: UP

DOWN

NEW TO THE LIST

UNCHANGED RETURNEE

THE LIST

2. CHALERM YOOVIDHYA

TH A ILA ND’S 50 RIC HE ST

Strong Signal 8. VANICH CHAIYAWAN $3 BILLION

THE LIST

THAI LIFE INSURANCE AGE: 90

9. PRACHAK TANGKARAVAKOON $2.8 BILLION TOA PAINT (THAILAND) AGE: 78

10. OSATHANUGRAH FAMILY $2.7 BILLION OSOTSPA

11. ALOKE LOHIA $2.5 BILLION INDORAMA VENTURES AGE: 63

12. CHUCHAT PETAUMPAI & DAONAPA PETAMPAI $2.05 BILLION MUANGTHAI CAPITAL AGE: 69, 68

13. HARALD LINK $2.02 BILLION B.GRIMM POWER AGE: 67

14. THAKSIN SHINAWATRA $2.01 BILLION SC ASSET AGE: 72

CHANGE IN WEALTH KEY: UP

DOWN

NEW TO THE LIST

UNCHANGED RETURNEE

Thai energy billionaire Sarath Ratanavadi has hit a sweet spot. His diversification into telecoms boosted shares of his flagship Gulf Energy by more than a third in the past year, making it Thailand’s sixth most valuable company with a market cap of $15.5 billion. Sarath moved up one spot in the ranks to No. 4 with a fortune of $11.1 billion. Gulf Energy’s stakes in Singtel-backed InTouch Holdings and its wireless unit Advanced Info Service—Thailand’s biggest mobile phone operator by revenue—helped fuel a 36% rise in first-quarter net profit to 3.3 billion baht ($92 million) from a year earlier, following a 79% jump in full-year earnings to 7.7 billion baht in 2021. Now Sarath has set his sights on a new horizon. In January, Gulf Energy partnered with billionaire Changpeng Zhao’s Binance—the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange by volume—to build a digital asset exchange platform in Thailand, while at the same time investing $20 million in U.S. affiliate BAM Trading Services. Also up next are plans to build data centers across Thailand with Singtel. Suwat Sinsadok, head of research at FSS International Investment Advisory Securities, said in a January research note that the strategic move—announced last year—has bolstered the company’s earnings outlook. He estimates that Gulf Energy’s net profit could nearly double to 13.5 billion baht this year. Gulf Energy didn’t respond to a request for comment. Since taking it public five years ago, Sarath has built Gulf Energy into Thailand’s largest privately owned power producer (by market cap). Alongside several new projects, including a gas-fired power plant in eastern Thailand, he’s expanding into renewable energy. In May the company announced a solar power joint venture with Siam Cement and a green energy partnership with the Chirathivat family’s Central group. —Jonathan Burgos

FORBES THAILAND

SARATH RATANAVADI

T HA IL AN D’ S 50 RIC H E ST

15. SANTI BHIROMBHAKDI $2 BILLION BOON RAWD BREWERY AGE: 76

16. PRAYUDH MAHAGITSIRI

THE LIST

$1.95 BILLION QUALITY COFFEE PRODUCTS AGE: 76

17. WICHAI THONGTANG $1.90 BILLION

KITTIDECH CHAROENPORN/FORBES THAILAND

BANGKOK DUSIT MEDICAL SERVICES AGE: 75

18. KEEREE KANJANAPAS

Gadget Guru

$1.75 BILLION

SURA KHANITTAWEEKUL

BTS GROUP HOLDINGS AGE: 71

Soaring demand for smart devices during the pandemic powered the wealth of Com7 cofounder and vice chairman Sura Khanittaweekul, who debuts on this year’s list with a $670 million fortune. Improvements in stock management—coupled with more pop-up stores and expanded services like hire-purchase loans—pushed up earnings at the Bangkok-based IT retailer, one of the biggest distributors of Apple products in Thailand. First-quarter net profit jumped by over a third to 782.1 million baht ($22.4 million) from a year earlier, on a 23% increase in revenue to 14.6 billion baht. Pisut Ngamvijitvong, a senior equity research analyst at Bangkok-based Kasikorn Securities, sees continued growth in 2022, projecting net profit will rise 8% to 2.9 billion baht from a year earlier and a 15% uptick in revenue to 59 billion baht. “We believe that Com7 is in the good position to gain market share from smaller retailers. Also, we think Apple products are for high-end customers, which are typically immune from the sluggish economy,” Pisut says by email. Longer term, Com7 plans to diversify its business to ease its dependency on the U.S. tech giant. In April, Com7 partnered with a subsidiary of Bangkok Dusit Medical Services—the largest private hospital operator in Thailand owned by billionaire Prasert Prasarttong-Osoth—to launch a chain of drug stores in shopping malls this year. A month later the company subscribed to a 3.6% stake of Bangkok-based fintech Sabuy Technology, in exchange for a 40% stake in Com7 distribution subsidiary Double7, to reach more customers. Sura, who studied finance in the U.S., opened his first store at Pantip Plaza, Bangkok’s electronics mall, in 1996. Com7 now operates over 1,000 outlets under brands BaNANA and Studio7. —Gloria Haraito

19. AIYAWATT SRIVADDHANAPRABHA $1.7 BILLION KING POWER AGE: 36

20. WILLIAM HEINECKE $1.65 BILLION MINOR INTERNATIONAL AGE: 73

21. KRIT RATANARAK $1.6 BILLION BANGKOK BROADCASTING & TV AGE: 76

22. ISARA VONGKUSOLKIT $1.59 BILLION MITR PHOL GROUP AGE: 74

TH A ILA ND’S 50 RIC HE ST

Wealth Creation

Side Effects 23. RIT THIRAKOMEN MK RESTAURANT GROUP AGE: 70

THE LIST

$1.55 BILLION 44

24. SATHIEN SETTHASIT $1.5 BILLION CARABAO GROUP AGE: 68

25. CHARTSIRI SOPHONPANICH $1.35 BILLION BANGKOK BANK AGE: 63

26. THONGMA VIJITPONGPUN

Rising inflation—as Thailand’s tourism industry shrugs off the impact of Covid-19—is expected to hamstring economic growth in 2022. Consumer prices have accelerated faster than expected since the beginning of the year, hitting a 14-year high in May, and will get in the way of a hoped-for rebound in household spending. That plus Russia’s war in Ukraine and a slowdown in China (a main export destination) led the government to sound a cautious note and lower its growth forecast for the year. GDP is now set to expand 3.4% in 2022, 4.3% in 2023 and 3.6% in 2024. The central bank signaled it will scale down “a very accommodative monetary policy” to contain inflation. The concern is that a hike in interest rates will deepen the drag on domestic consumption. At the start of June, Thailand announced a $1.6 billion bond issue to address the budget deficit, which is expected to have ballooned to 6.7% of GDP in the second year of the pandemic, before falling back to 4.6% this year. Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha’s government is placing its hopes on a $93 billion budget bill for 2023 to help boost Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy. But critics say it could be a debt trap that benefits a few, arguing for investments that strengthen the economy long term. —Rainer Michael Preiss

Balancing Act

$1.31 BILLION PRUKSA HOLDING AGE: 64

Pandemic spending is seen behind a rise in the country’s budget deficit.

27. NISHITA SHAH & FAMILY

Budget deficit as % of GDP

*Forecast

N.A.

$1.3 BILLION GP GROUP AGE: 42

6.7

28. ANANT ASAVABHOKHIN $1.2 BILLION

4.6 5

LAND AND HOUSES AGE: 71

3.5

2.6

3.4 2.5 1.9

29. BANTHOON LAMSAM $1.19 BILLION KASIKORN BANK AGE: 69

0 CHANGE IN WEALTH KEY: UP

DOWN

NEW TO THE LIST

2015

2016

UNCHANGED RETURNEE

Source for charts: Bloomberg

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021*

2022*

2023*

T HA IL AN D’ S 50 RIC H E ST

Inflation’s Bite Amid global headwinds, Thailand downgraded its growth forecast for this year.

*Forecast

GDP growth (YoY % change)

3.1

3.4

4.2

2.2

-6.2

1.5

3.4

4.3

3.6

30. PONGSAK VIDDAYAKORN $1.18 BILLION

PRINCIPAL CAPITAL AGE: 88

$1.05 MILLION SIAM GLOBAL HOUSE AGE: 64

-5

32. SUPALUCK UMPUJH $1 BILLION -0.9

0.2

0.7

1.1

0.7

-0.8

1.2

4.7

1.4

1.6

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022*

2023*

2024*

THE MALL GROUP AGE: 67

33. CHATCHAI KAEWBOOTTA

Going Rate

$985 MILLION

The Thai currency is expected to end 2022 little changed.

SRISAWAD CORPORATION AGE: 71

Baht to Dollar 36.03

35.84

*Forecast

32.57

32.33

29.71

29.96

33.21

33.50

32.40

34. NUTCHAMAI THANOMBOONCHAROEN $925 MILLION CARABAO GROUP AGE: 60

35. WINAI TEAWSOMBOONKIJ $900 MILLION

THAIFOODS GROUP AGE: 59

36. KUMPOL PLUSSIND

$840 MILLION CHULARAT HOSPITAL AGE: 71

0 2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022*

2023*

2024*

THE LIST

31. WITOON SURIYAWANAKUL

Consumer price index (YoY % change)

TH A ILA ND’S 50 RIC HE ST

Recharged Fortune GUNKUL DHUMRONGPIYAWUT

37. ADISAK SUKUMVITAYA JAY MART AGE: 66

THE LIST

$835 MILLION 46

38. ADISAK & NATTAYA TANGMITRPHRACHA $825 MILLION DOHOME AGE: 67, 68

39. MALEENONT FAMILY $820 MILLION BEC WORLD

40. PHORNTHEP PHORNPRAPHA $815 MILLION SIAM MOTORS GROUP AGE: 73

41. BANCHA ONGKOSIT $810 MILLION KCE ELECTRONICS AGE: 70

42. MONGKOL PRAKITCHAIWATTHANA $775 MILLION KRUNGTHAI CARD

43. VIRIYAHBHUN FAMILY $770 MILLION VIRIYAH INSURANCE

CHANGE IN WEALTH KEY: UP

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NEW TO THE LIST

UNCHANGED RETURNEE

Thailand has become the first Asian country to decriminalize non-recreational use of cannabis. Among the first movers in this business is Gunkul Engineering, one of the country’s biggest renewable energy producers. The company has earmarked an investment of 2 billion baht ($57 million) for cultivation and production of medical-grade cannabis that can also be used in cosmetics and food products. To kickstart the venture, Gunkul Engineering has teamed up with the Charoen Pokphand Group, owned by the Chearavanont brothers, to develop hemp seeds strains and cannabidiol-infused food and beverage products. These moves have made investors bullish on the company’s prospects. Its shares rose 8% in the past year, returning its founder and chairman Gunkul Dhumrongpiyawut to the ranks of the country’s 50 richest after a four-year hiatus with a net worth of $765 million. Seated in the 8th floor boardroom of the company’s corporate headquarters at Pearl Bangkok, an office tower that looks very similar to The Gherkin in London, chairman Gunkul calls this new business “the opportunity of the decade.” He’s flanked by his wife Sopacha Dhumrongpiyawut and the company’s CEO, Somboon Aueatchasai, who together run the day-to-day operations. (His daughter Naruechon is the company’s chief operating officer.) The firm will be utilizing the land around its windfarms for the project. “Land is a byproduct of our wind energy business,” says Gunkul, who expects hemp to generate $50 million in revenue by next year. Sopacha adds that looking for new opportunities is part of her husband’s DNA, but he starts a new venture only when he’s “90% confident of success.” Gunkul built his company from scratch. The fifth of seven children, his father owned a small shop selling construction materials in Bangkok. While his siblings were diligent, Gunkul says he was never much of a student and dropped out of school as a teenager to work at his father’s shop. At age 18, he approached the city’s electricity authority offering to supply equipment. But his business got going only a decade later in 1982, when he set up his company. In 1992, he took a bank loan of 2 million baht and got into manufacturing to take advantage of a government policy offering a 14% price premium for locally produced equipment. Setting up his first factory was arduous and led to “many sleepless nights,” he recalls. It was difficult to find the right people and some employees left to start a rival business. Gunkul’s expansion into renewable energy came about when he secured a contract from the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand in 2007 to install a wind turbine. “I realized this could be a good business that could start giving returns quickly,” he explains. The company got into solar followed by wind, securing a raft of corporate customers such as Charoen Pokphand Foods, part of the CP Group. Almost a decade ago, Gunkul Engineering began to expand overseas with renewable energy projects in Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam. The company has since sold two of its four projects in Japan, and Gunkul says for now his primary

T HA IL AN D’ S 50 RIC H E ST

44. GUNKUL DHUMRONGPIYAWUT $765 MILLION

45. CHALERM HARNPHANICH $745 MILLION BANGKOK CHAIN HOSPITAL AGE: 69

46. BOONCHAI BENCHARONGKUL $735 MILLION TOTAL ACCESS COMMUNICATION AGE: 68

47. SOMPORN JUANGROONGRUANGKIT $710 MILLION THAI SUMMIT GROUP AGE: 71

48. PETE BODHARAMIK

COURTESY OF GUNKUL ENGINEERING

$685 MILLION focus is on the domestic market. Keen to scale up its present capacity of 642 megawatts, Gunkul Engineering in May formed a joint venture with a subsidiary of billionaire Sarath Ratanavadi’s Gulf Energy Development. This aims to add 1,000 megawatts over the next five years. The upcoming expansions are expected to arrest a recent earnings slide. First-quarter net profit fell 17% to 505 million baht while revenue stayed flat at 2.3 billion baht, following full-year declines of 35% and 10%, respectively, in 2021. Suwat Sinsadok, head of research at FSS International Investment Advisory Securities, expects net profit and revenue to jump 73% to 3.8 billion baht and 32% to 12.3 billion baht, respectively, in 2022 and predicts solid annual increases through 2024. Gunkul, who grows durian at his farm near the beach resort town of Hua Hin—and who is also a serious wine connoisseur with a collection that he stores in Hong Kong—is confident the company can grow revenue by 50% over the next five years, “I’m already looking for the next opportunity.” —Naazneen Karmali and Gloria Haraito

JASMINE INTERNATIONAL AGE: 49

49. SURA KHANITTAWEEKUL $670 MILLION COM7 AGE: 52

50. PONGSAK THAMMATHATAREE $655 MILLION COM7 FOR MORE INFO, GO TO FORBES.COM/THAILAND

THE LIST

GUNKUL ENGINEERING AGE: 67

Leandro Leviste looks to grow

THE PROFILE BY R O E L L A N D I N G I N

P H OTO G R A P H S BY S O N N Y T H A K U R F O R F O R B E S A S I A

C H A R G I N G

FORBES ASIA

the Philippines’ solar power industry.

A H E A D

J U LY 2 0 2 2

FORBES ASIA

THE PROFILE

Leandro Leviste, the son of a prominent Philip-

pine senator, has had no trouble opening doors in Manila, but the young Filipino CEO says he sometimes isn’t taken seriously. That made him welcome the switch from in-person meetings to online video during the Covid-19 lockdowns. “We used to go to older people’s offices and they would look down on us because we looked like a startup,” says the 28-year-old boss of Solar

Philippines Power Project Holdings Inc., or SPPPHI. “When we talk to investors and partners remotely, the age disparity becomes less apparent.” What’s very apparent is that Leviste is a young man in a hurry to lift how much solar power the Philippines uses. He now has two solar farms in operation, with a combined capacity of 163 megawatts (MW). But he has preliminary permits and a goal of completing all the groundwork including financing for 10 gigawatts of capacity by 2025. That’s 60 times more than his current operating level and roughly 7.5 times the total amount of solar capacity for the entire country. As with many other countries, the Philippines aims to jump on the renewable energy bandwagon, especially given that the country gets plenty of sunshine. Regulations require electric utilities to source at least 35% of their power needs from renewables by 2030, compared with 21% in 2020. So far, solar accounts for only 3%. Leviste’s expansion plans won’t come cheap—he estimates it could cost around $8 billion in total. But Leviste thinks the ambitious goals are attainable, and to reach them, he will need substantial help from partnerships. So far, he has teamed up

Electric utilities in the Philippines are expected to source at least 35% of their power needs from renewables by 2030.

FORBES ASIA

J U LY 2 0 2 2

“I grew up being taught, ‘don’t wait to buy land, buy land and wait.’ ” 51

J U LY 2 0 2 2

Property and Politics Whether Leandro Leviste proves a success as a big developer of solar power in the Philippines, his family name is already well known. A street in Makati central business district is named after his late grandfather Lauro P. Leviste, who was a real estate broker, in recognition of his role in developing the area near Manila after World War II. With Leandro’s foray into land for solar projects, the Leviste family now has been involved in property for three generations. Leandro’s father, 82-year-old Antonio Leviste, was a successful developer in Batangas Province, where he was governor from 1972 to 1980. In 2009, Antonio was convicted of homicide for the 2007 shooting death of a long-time aide, and he was imprisoned until 2013. Antonio said it was in selfdefense but the court rejected his claim, noting the aide was shot five times. Leandro’s mother, 62-year-old Loren Legarda, is among the country’s most popular politicians. In the May election, she got the second-highest number of votes among 64 candidates vying for open Senate seats. The former broadcast journalist earlier served two terms as a senator. She and her husband separated in 2003, and their marriage was later annulled. Leandro caught flak during deliberations in 2019 on a legislative franchise for a Solar Philippines subsidiary aiming to provide solar power to off-grid and underserved areas. It was opposed by utilities who feared this would violate their exclusive charters but supported by leaders of electricity-deficient areas. He was criticized as benefitting from his mother then chairing the powerful Senate finance committee. “Not at all,” Leandro told reporters in December 2018. “This is purely on the basis of merit.” Legarda abstained from voting on the measure and denied lobbying for its passage. The bill eventually passed after clearer limits were added on the subsidiary’s scope of business. In 2022, Congress passed a law that let other microgrid service providers do business in power-starved communities without getting a congressional franchise, providing more competition.

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THE PROFILE

with Philippine billionaire Enrique Razon Jr. and Jaime Zobel de Ayala’s Ayala group. Also, Korea Electric Power (Kepco) paid nearly $40 million for 38% of his first farm in operation, in Batangas Province, where Leviste’s father was once governor. It is operated by Solar Philippine Calatagan Corp. (SPCC), which as of June was 62% owned by parent SPPPHI. Leviste isn’t just eyeing expansion at home. He has a project planned for Indonesia too, together with the Panigoro family’s Medco Energi, which in March signed a power-purchase agreement (PPA) with the state utility PLN involving two proposed 25MW farms in Bali. Large solar expansion requires three things: swathes of land for farms, big capex financing and a PPA for guaranteeing long-term sales to electric utilities that will distribute the solar power. The Philippines, unlike Indonesia and many developing countries, does not have a sole state-owned distributor of electric power. Leviste has land, which he is hoping gives him a first-mover advantage in some areas. Over seven years, Leviste has bought or leased relatively flat agricultural and pasture lands near transmission lines, largely in Luzon, the most populated island. The businessman, who has a target of getting control of 10,000 hectares, says his father’s family, with a real estate business, bought land in Makati in the 1970s at around 100 pesos (about $7 then) a square meter. “I grew up being taught, ‘Don’t wait to buy land, buy land and wait,’ ” he says. For financing, some will come through his listed Solar Philippines Nueva Ecija Corp. (SPNEC) and more is expected from partnerships. For Leviste, a pivotal tie-up is with Razon, whose Prime Infrastructure Capital holds 50% in two jointly owned solar projects. Solar Philippines Tarlac, with 100MW capacity, is already in operation, while Solar Philippines Tanauan, building a total of 170MW in two sites, expects to produce from early 2023. The two businessmen eye much larger capacity. In 2021, through SPPPHI and Prime Infrastructure, they formed a joint venture called Terra Solar Philippines, in which Razon has 50.01% and Leviste has 49.99%. In the near future, it hopes to successfully complete negotiations of a 20-year PPA for a hefty sale of power to Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), the only distributor in Metro Manila, from solar farms to be developed with Razon. These farms, to be located across at least five provinces in Luzon, would have a combined total gross capacity of at least 2,500MW, and could be the largest solar power operation in the world. A 20-year PPA would open the way for bank loans for the project.

THE PROFILE

In late June, Solar Philippines won five longterm contracts to sell power to the wholesale electricity spot market after a Department of Energy competitive tender, creating a market for several projects with a combined gross capacity of 2,000MW. It also submitted an unsolicited offer to supply baseload power to Meralco for 24 hours a day for 20 years from 2024 by building a solar farm with a gross capacity of 1,800MW, supplemented by batteries. For pursuing his overall plans, Leviste’s listed company is a linchpin. Some of the 2.7 billion pesos ($50.6 million) raised in its December IPO will go for construction of the first phase of a 500MW solar farm, 100km north of Manila, that would be the country’s largest to date. During July, SPNEC hopes to launch a rights offering to raise between 3 billion and 3.3 billion pesos. Shares of SPNEC, which began trading at 1 peso, were trading at around 1.65 pesos in late June. In March, SPNEC approved a plan to buy its parent company’s stakes in more than 20 planned solar generation projects across the Philippines. SPNEC is issuing 24.4 billion new shares as payment. The parent’s ownership of SPNEC is expected to fall to 54.2% from 66.8% after the rights offering. For the six months ended in March, SPNEC reported a loss of 48.3 million pesos. Unlisted

SPPPHI said its net income in 2021 increased sixfold to 806.4 million pesos, though that was mainly due to the sale of its stake in a subsidiary. Revenue fell 19% to 1.23 billion pesos.

eviste first got interested in building a solar pow-

er business in the Philippines in 2013. He was interning at Meralco during a summer break from Yale University where he was studying political science. Leviste was intrigued by Elon Musk’s companies Tesla and SolarCity, which led him to feel there was an opportunity at home to supply solar power more cheaply than what Filipinos were paying for electricity generated from fossil fuels. During his second year at Yale, Leviste dropped out and returned to Manila. His father then knocked down a sprawling mango orchard and lots planted with other crops in Batangas, and used the land as security for a loan for a solar project. SPCC, the company he set up in 2015 to build the solar plant, pledged all its common shares to three banks. Leviste spent months at the 106ha site, overseeing the installation of over 200,000 photovoltaic (PV) panels. “It’s just like building with Lego,” he says. Leviste says he went “all in” on solar. After his company in 2016 met a demanding deadline for completing that first gridscale power plant, to qualify for pivotal tariff subsidies, he put up a marker inscribed “A monument to ‘It can’t be done.’ ”—a message for skeptics who thought he wouldn’t finish on time. Alberto Dalusung III, a former director at the energy department and currently a member of the National Renewable En-

RISE AND SHINE The Philippine government sees now-small solar power capacity increasing steadily for many years. CUMULATIVE INSTALLED SOLAR POWER CAPACITY UNDER THE PHILIPPINE ENERGY PLAN 2020-2040 (IN MEGAWATTS)

2022 onward are forecast/estimate

35,000

30,000

25,000

20,000

15,000

10,000

5000

0 2021

2022 2023 2024 2025 2026

2027 2028 2029 2030

2031

2032 2033 2034 2035 2036 2037 2038 2039 2040

Source: Department of Energy FORBES ASIA

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53 THE PROFILE

Solar Philippines Power Project Holdings operates two solar farms, with capacity of 163MW.

ergy Board, is upbeat about what can be done with renewables, noting a USAID-funded study that identified nine competitive renewable energy zones in Luzon with an estimated 35 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity and 54GW of wind capacity. “We’re really moving towards renewables,” he says. “The potential is so much bigger than what Solar Philippines has envisioned.” If Philippine use of solar power increases significantly, however, Leviste could face stiffening competition and higher costs, says Joey Roxas, CEO of Eagle Equities in Manila. “The cost of land may rise but as the number of solar producers increase, competition could also depress power rates they could charge,” he notes. Eduardo Francisco, president of BDO Capital & Investment, a subsidiary of the country’s largest lender, notes that the cost of providing solar power has gone down, thanks to cheaper PV panels, and describes Leviste’s business model as “basically workable,” But he adds, “It remains to be seen if there are enough PPAs being tendered between now and 2025 to cover Solar Philippines’ 10GW plan.” Leviste has vied aggressively for long-term contracts to supply solar power to Meralco, the country’s largest electricity utility. He won his first deal in 2017 by offering to sell at only 2.999 pesos per kilowatt hour at a time when Meralco’s average cost of power was around 4.6 pesos per kwh. “I sacrificed future profits on that deal but if you consider that as our marketing expense to win future contracts, then it was the best investment that we ever made,” Leviste explains. Though his solar business is now positioned to expand signifJ U LY 2 0 2 2

icantly, Leviste admits that many of his early bets didn’t deliver as expected, prompting the company to stop making solar panels and installing them on residential and commercial building rooftops. Targets have been scaled down for a subsidiary that aimed to provide solar power to off-grid and underserved areas throughout the country, for which it has secured a non-exclusive franchise from Congress in 2019. “Microgrid, commercial and residential rooftop will just account for a tenth of solar power use. The rest will come from solar farms connected to the grid,” he says. “We’d still love to do off-grid electrification on a CSR [corporate social responsibility] basis from the profits that we make from the solar farms.” Leviste says the biggest source of value for his solar business isn’t going to be in the dividends from holding the operating assets for 25 years. “It’s on buying land at 200 pesos per square meter, and revaluing it once it’s industrial to 1,000 pesos per square meter, and infusing it into equity for a joint venture which would have a present value of 2,000 pesos per square meter. That’s how we can turn one peso into ten pesos over time,” he says. Aware of the obstacles to sharp expansion, he half-jokingly says, “We’re accumulating land left and right, but might just end up with cattle-raising as a business.” FORBES ASIA

PROMOTION

The Evolution of a Bespoke French High Perfumery Family-owned perfume maison Henry Jacques invites lovers of ﬁne fragrance to step into the exclusive world of French high perfumery.

Henry Jacques’ Paris boutique along Avenue Montaigne

Countless brick-and-mortar stores have been casualties of the digital transformation that has reshaped the retail landscape in recent years, but many consumers at the high end of the beauty market still desire personalized, face-to-face interactions with their favorite brands. A recent survey by global retail tech agency Outform revealed that more than half of the 2,000 respondents preferred purchasing beauty products in person, with around 40% citing the experience of being in a boutique and consulting with brand experts as being inﬂuential in their purchasing decisions. These findings reflect the thinking that saw family-owned perfume maison Henry Jacques take its ﬁrst decisive step into retail in 2014, with the opening of an exclusive space within the Salon de Parfums at Harrods in London—a dedicated space to interact with and better serve its discerning clientele. Founded in 1975, Henry Jacques has forged a reputation for creating bespoke scents of the highest quality. Initially introduced to a small group of private clients, these

one-oﬀ, bespoke fragrances were created to complement its wearer—to invoke personal memories and emotions, and to become an

Anne-Lise Cremona

extension of their identity. Clients were able to have their tailor-made scents housed in uniquely designed crystal ﬂacons, collaborating with the brand’s experts to create an artisanal fragrance that becomes uniquely theirs. As the clientele for bespoke offerings grew over the next few decades, an archive of some 3,000 unique scents sporting names such as “Rose Snow,” “Merveilleuse” and “Et Pourtant” was curated, forming the pillars of the maison and building on the legacy of French high perfumery. Under the guidance of Henry Jacques’ daughter, Anne-Lise Cremona, the move into retail was part of an ambitious plan to introduce French high perfumery to a wider audience. Since taking over the reins of the company in 2011, Ms Cremona has opened the doors of Henry Jacques to more people with the launch of 50 scents during the brand’s public debut—a decision made possible thanks to Henry Jacques’ fragrance archive. Known collectively as Les Classiques, the 50 fragrances are created in three forms: Les Essences, oils housed in minimalistic crystal

PROMOTION

Marrying Innovation with Tradition

ﬂacons and applied directly to the skin with a crystal rod; Les Brumes, a lighter and modern way of enjoying the art of high perfumery with liquids housed in a unique ‘splash and spray’ convertible flacon; and the Clic-Clac, the brand’s take on solid perfumes, which are essentially scents that come in a balmlike form. Following the success of its ﬁrst foray into the retail landscape with Harrods, Henry Jacques has brought this curated physical experience to more locations around the world, with eight boutiques opening in cities such as Singapore, Dubai and Beverly Hills.

Breaking New Ground From creating bespoke fragrances for private clients to making its mark on the luxury retail world, Henry Jacques has grown from strength to strength since its founding. That journey continues to this day with the opening of Henry Jacques’ ninth boutique globally in the heart of Paris in May this year. Situated across the river from the Eiffel Tower, the 400-square-meter duplex space is the brand’s ﬁrst standalone boutique in Paris, on one of the most iconic Avenues in the world—Avenue Montaigne. This new boutique takes visitors on an exhilarating journey through the world of French high perfumery, where they can observe Henry Jacques’ designers delicately manipulating the raw materials responsible for creating some of the world’s most precious and prestigious perfumes. The brand’s artistic director, Christophe Tollemer, has brought the splendor of Henry

Henry Jacques' Laboratory

Inside Henry Jacques' Paris boutique

Jacques’ legacy to life through historic Parisian architecture and timeless charms sprinkled throughout the space. Welcoming customers with a small garden—a rarity along the historic avenue—and colorful flagons within the lab-like interior space, the boutique celebrates the French art of living with classic collections of jewelry, art and historical pieces adorning the walls. The key focus, however, remains very much on the creation of exceptional scents. A special lounge dedicated to bespoke fragrances allows connoisseurs to compose their personal fragrances in complete privacy during consultations with Henry Jacques’ experts.

Les Classiques

As it honors the traditions of French high perfumery, Henry Jacques also continues to push the boundaries of what is possible through a culture of innovation. One recent highlight of this desire to blaze new trails was the creation of the Clic-Clac in 2021, an accessory that houses the brand’s new collection of solid perfumes. A sophisticated creation, the Clic-Clac revives the gesture of applying solid perfume; the wearer only needs to pick up a small amount of the scent’s wax on the ﬁngertips, before dabbing it on his or her pulse points. Named after the sound it makes, the Clic-Clac opens with a simple slide to reveal a single circular perfume capsule ready for application, and similarly shuts with ease with a slight push. Borrowing techniques from the expertise of Swiss watchmaking, the Clic-Clac was developed after more than four years of development to ensure its longevity before it was able to reach its current standard of patented engineering. The accessory is available in materials such as titanium, carbon and gold, and can house Les Classiques scents in the form of interchangeable solid perfume capsules. The modernity of the Clic-Clac, and the revived art of solid perfumes, encapsulates Henry Jacques’ vision—the traditional art of French high perfumery enhanced with modern innovations, reflecting Ms Cremona’s keen desire to continue bringing the maison to greater heights in the coming decades.

The Clic-Clac

GREEN BY DAV I D J E A N S

P H OTO G R A P H S BY J A M E L T O P P I N F O R F O R B E S

F E AT U R E S

REVOL

ndrew Forrest

travels the globe trying to persuade leaders of industry and politics— and rank-and-file workers—that despite his polluting past he’s the man to champion green hydrogen as the clean fuel of the future.

UTION

F E AT U R E S

More than a couple of the dozen or so coalplant workers gathered at West Virginia’s Pleasants Power Station in April to hear Andrew Forrest push his green hydrogen agenda rolled their eyes as he spoke. “I BELIEVE this coal-fired power station has a huge future,” the Australian mining billionaire told them. The employees could be forgiven for their skepticism. Just weeks before, they learned their plant, surrounded by other closures throughout coal country, would be the latest to shut down. Forrest’s message was heartfelt, contrarian and a bit pie in the sky. In West Virginia, the second-largest coalproducing region in the U.S., Forrest told the workers that 22 of the state’s 26 coal-powered plants could be converted to green hydrogen plants. Tell your family and friends, he said. Manufacturing zero-emission hydrogen would need boilermakers, carpenters and welders in this very spot. And not only them, but their children and grandchildren, who would help power America with a new energy source that when unleashed releases nothing but water vapor. Forrest, the richest man in Australia, faces incredulity in the U.S. not only because the honcho of the metals industry, which is responsible for a chunk of the planet’s carbon emissions, seems like an odd missionary for green energy, but also because the infrastructure to achieve his vision doesn’t exist yet. Forrest has yet to produce a molecule of hydrogen and a recent flurry of announcements are far from firm contracts. Two of his more high-profile fellow billionaires have spoken doubtfully about hydrogen and nobody has tried to produce it at the scale Forrest envisions. Even so, Goldman Sachs estimates green hydrogen will become a $12 trillion industry by 2050. In spite of the naysaying, Forrest has become the world’s biggest booster, and most-traveled proponent, of green hydrogen, and says he’s on track to start producing it in commercial quantities by 2024. “Here’s a CEO of a company from Australia coming on a private jet into West Virginia,” says Jay Powell, the FORBES ASIA

Pleasants County Commission president, who joined Forrest on his visit to the plant. “When you’re talking about utilizing something we have here, that he wants, that certainly gives me and others within our community goosebumps.”

S E AT E D I N a palatial lounge at his beachside mansion in Perth, 17,700km from the coal plant, Forrest, who built the world’s fourth-largest iron ore company, Fortescue Metals Group, says places like West Virginia are ripe for his green hydrogen revolution. “It’s a myth to think [workers] are loyal to coal,” he says. “People are loyal to employment.” To promote his hydrogen venture, Fortescue Future Industries, or FFI, Forrest has in the past year met with U.S. President Joe Biden, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, among other world leaders. His world tour has led to over a dozen non-binding commitments, including an agreement with Airbus to study how to make planes powered by hydrogen and a plan to send 5 million tons of green hydrogen to Germany by 2030—around 30% of what the country needs to replace its reliance on Russian energy. FFI is also in talks to build a green hydrogen plant in Kenya. FFI is entitled to 10% of Fortescue’s annual profit, almost $1 billion last year, and since launching in 2020, FFI has built proof-of-concept hydrogen-powered hauler trucks and drill rigs in record time and is expected to roll out similarly powered locomotives and ships by next year. Some of Fortescue’s mines are now powered primarily by solar energy and FFI is spending $83 million to build a facility to make its own electrolyzers, the machine that extracts hydrogen from water. Such vast ambitions, and the challenge of building an industry from the ground up, has led some to ask whether Forrest is biting off more than he can chew. “That’s what we love about him,” says Mike CannonBrookes, a fellow Australian billionaire and co-CEO of software giant Atlassian, who has partnered with Forrest on a venture to send solar power to Asia. “He’s six parts moxie, seven parts bullshit, and some part of it’s going to come true—and we’ll figure it all out in 20 years time.” There’s also a widely held view that hydrogen is inefficient as a power source. Green hydrogen has a roundtrip efficiency between 18% and 46%, according to an MIT study, which found by comparison flow batteries used in cars have an efficiency rate between 60% and 80%. Another billionaire, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, reiterated his longstanding position last month, saying that because of the amount of energy needed to produce it, hydrogen is “the most dumb thing I could possibly imagine for energy storage.” J U LY 2 0 2 2

FORREST

“It’s a myth to think [workers] are loyal to coal. People are loyal to employment.”

has loomed large in Australia for decades. Known by his nickname “Twiggy,” a play on his family name and the fact he was a skinny kid, he has used his vast mining fortune, which Forbes estimates at $16.6 billion, to become the country’s most active philanthropist, and has crafted a public image as a knockabout Aussie bloke, often seen in press photos wearing high-visibility vests and talking to miners. With a demeanor that can morph from grin to jaw clench in an instant, Forrest says FFI is his way to leave the Earth better than he found it. “I’m not a person who just says, ‘OK, I’ve achieved everything, I’m now going to sail off playing tennis on the back deck of a yacht,’” he says. “I just want to live a useful life.” J U LY 2 0 2 2

about three times the size of New York City—where he mustered cattle on horseback. After graduating from the University of Western Australia with a degree in economics and politics he worked as a stock broker before buying into and becoming the CEO of Anaconda Nickel in 1993—a venture that would nearly ruin him. He was ousted from Anaconda a decade later, amid bad bets, mounting debt and project delays, but reemerged in 2002 at the helm of Fortescue Metals Group, which he started by buying a small mining exploration company. FORBES ASIA

59 F E AT U R E S

Then there’s the argument that hydrogen NOT ALL HY DRO GEN I S TH E SAME production is founded on unsound economics. Given the affordability of other resources Used heavily in oil refining, the chemical industry and food processing, like gas, hydrogen won’t become truly marnearly all hydrogen is made from natural gas and steam reformation, which splits hydrogen and carbon. This is known as “gray” hydrogen ketable until government subsidies and inowing to its carbon dioxide emissions. If the carbon dioxide is captured, vestment arrive, says David Leitch, a Sydneyit is upgraded to “blue” hydrogen, a more environmentally friendly profile. based energy analyst at ITK Services. The Green hydrogen, however, is made using an electrolyzer—which splits the Australian government, for example, has so hydrogen atoms from water—powered by renewable energy sources like far shown little interest in seriously subsidizwind or solar power. ing green hydrogen. Grey Blue Turquoise** Green Forrest shrugs that off and points to coal. Hydrogen Hydrogen Hydrogen Hydrogen Coal in the U.S. is also grossly inefficient— about 33% after converting back to power. It’s also among the most heavily subsidized Process SMR* or SMR or Pyrolysis Electrolysis industries in the world. The International gasification gasification with carbon Monetary Fund found the fossil-fuel industry capture received $5.9 trillion in subsidies worldwide (85-95%) in 2020. As for Musk’s love of batteries, ForSource Methane Methane Methane Renewable rest says the Tesla billionaire is depending on or coal or coal electricity something with a finite life, with finite quantities. “We have an infinite life and an infinite commodity in hydrogen,” Forrest says. To cement his pitch, Forrest is seeking *SMR = Steam Methane Reforming. buy-in from the U.S, and by the time he **Turquoise hydrogen is an emerging decarbonization option. Source: International Renewable Energy Agency left Pleasants Power Station, the workers weren’t the only skeptics Forrest appeared to have won over. He met that day with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), whose staunch defense of the coal industry is the sharpest thorn in Biden’s A few kilometers from Forrest’s beachside compound, plans to move the U.S. to a green future. Forrest’s “inPerth’s tallest skyscrapers bear the names of the world’s vestments in hydrogen and other clean energy technolomining giants: Rio Tinto, BHP and Woodside. It was gies have the potential to be transformative in Australia, here that Forrest got his start as a mining tycoon. A dethe U.S. and around the world,” Manchin’s spokesperson scendant of the first governor of Western Australia, the Sam Runyon said in a statement. Forrest name is all over the region, on street signs, neighThe day after visiting West Virginia, Forrest met with borhoods and national parks. Growing up, Forrest spent Biden for 45 minutes, and Forrest says the president was a lot of time on his family’s pastoral station, Minderoo— satisfied “that this was a future for North America.” The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

F E AT U R E S

Such vast ambitions, and the challenge of building an industry from the ground up, has led some to ask whether Forrest is biting off more than he can chew.

His new vision was based on a hunch: For years, he believed there was potential to drill holes in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, an area he knew well from his time growing up on Minderoo. There were deposits of iron ore there. It was just that Rio Tinto and BHP had overlooked them. Forrest’s tendency to ignore guidance would later prove fortuitous. Fortescue rode a wave of Chinese demand for iron ore, which drove the price of the commodity from $30 to $200 a ton in 2008, when the company began shipping. When Forrest stepped down as CEO and became chairman in 2011, Fortescue had generated $5.5 billion in revenue and $1 billion in profit. Now Australia’s eighth-largest company, Fortescue is valued at $42 billion, and generated $9 billion net income last year. Becoming a mining magnate and building one of the world’s largest iron-ore producers—and one of Australia’s largest carbon polluters—meant that saving the planet from climate change wasn’t always top of mind for Forrest. But after stepping back as CEO, Forrest and his wife Nicola spent more time on their philanthropic arm, the Minderoo Foundation, to tackle big issues. Global warming was chief among them. In 2016, Forrest embarked on a four-year doctorate in marine ecology at the University of Western Australia, a time when he was instructing his team to look into technology that could transport hydrogen and ammonia, and FORBES ASIA

whether scaling solar power was possible. He realized “just how vicious the grip the fossil-fuel sector has on the future of everyone on this planet,” Forrest says. By 2020, the stage was set for Forrest to launch FFI. Forrest has contended with a noisy chorus of cynicism at home. The “greenwash of the century,” one columnist wrote after FFI launched. The writer added that, aside from mining tycoon Gina Rinehart, “no Australian has ever caused more damage to the environment than Andrew Forrest, and with the same exception, no Australian has ever made more money doing so.” Forrest is unapologetic about his rise. When asked what he makes of the notion that he has amassed his fortune using fossil fuel, his expression turns to steel. “I’d say, who hasn’t?” he says. “It’s because I have done something, because I’ve traded major industry, major manufacturing and major energy consumption, that I get listened to when I say to the energy manufacturing industry: We’re going green.”

FORTESCUE FUTURE INDUSTRIES has two mandates: to develop hydrogen-powered infrastructure and vehicles to decarbonize Fortescue’s operations by 2030 and, separately, to produce and sell 15 million tons of green hydrogen and green ammonia a year. J U LY 2 0 2 2

America, and we can sell it in America,” says Julie Shuttleworth, FFI’s outgoing CEO. “The U.S. is everything.”

TO PROSECUTE his clean energy dreams, Forrest will have to overcome technical challenges facing hydrogen. Companies like Toyota and Hyundai are investing billions into developing consumer vehicles powered by hydrogen, and Japan has become a leading advocate, deploying hydrogen-powered buses at the Tokyo Olympics and fueling the Olympic flame with the gas. There’s enthusiasm for green hydrogen in the European Union, which is pushing energy producers to make 10 million tons of green hydrogen annually by 2030. The same is true of the U.S., where in February Biden announced $9.5 billion in subsidies for the hydrogen sector, aiming to bring down the price of the resource from around $5 per kilogram to $1 over the next decade and make it competitive with gas. In the U.S., green hydrogen also has avoided becoming a political lightning rod, says Andy Marsh, the CEO of New York-based green hydrogen company Plug Power, who has partnered with Forrest to build his electrolyzers. There’s even been buy-in from the fossil-fuel industry. Last week, oil giant BP announced it was taking a 40% stake in the Asian Renewable Energy Hub, a $30 billion venture to cover 6,475 square kilometers of Western Australia with wind turbines and solar farms to produce 26 gigawatts of power—around a third of Australia’s entire grid—for electrolyzers that will make green hydrogen. But other observers are taking a wait-and-see approach. Cannon-Brookes, a co-investor with Forrest in a $30 billion project named Sun Cable, which is building the largest solar farm in the world to send power to Asia via undersea cable, isn’t completely sold: The infrastructure to power Forrest’s vision with renewable energy does not yet exist. “Theoretically on paper it could,” he says. “It might just take another five to 10 years to run through all the scales to introduce it.” If Forrest is concerned by the skepticism around his big bet, he hasn’t shown it, and his hurricane-style world tour has continued. In May, Forrest joined a coalition of industry players at the Green Hydrogen Global Assembly in Barcelona to set a goal to produce 100 million tons of green hydrogen globally by 2030, up from 100,000 tons today. When a global standard was released, Forrest’s swagger was on full display, and in front of hundreds of people, he and Teresa Ribera, the deputy prime minister and ecological transition minister of Spain, danced to the Hamilton song “The Room Where It Happens.” “We had a lot to celebrate,” Forrest said in June in New York. “So we danced.”

“When I saw all those engines running pollution free, I thought, ‘We finally have the smell of the future: no smell. The sound of the future: no sound.’”

The hydrogen-powered hauler trucks are the first small steps of what Forrest hopes will be an industry he effectively builds from scratch, powering everything from ships to planes. To underscore Forrest’s belief, FFI has hired almost 1,000 people in the past year and installed energy industry leaders, including Mark Hutchins, the former president and CEO of General Electric Europe, to join FFI as CEO. While Forrest has been busy drumming up support across the world, at FFI headquarters, its global ambitions are made clear. Glass-walled rooms are marked by the country team operating in them: Jordan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Argentina. But it’s in the U.S. that FFI sees the greatest opportunity. “We can make it in J U LY 2 0 2 2

FORBES ASIA

61 F E AT U R E S

At a sprawling warehouse on the outskirts of Perth, Jim Herring, who oversees FFI’s research and development as head of green industry, is looking onto a vast lot where a white hauler truck is circling. Using hydrogen produced by a third party, the truck can run for 20 minutes before it needs to be refueled, but is a proof-ofconcept that Herring’s team built last year in less than 100 days. His team is building prototype hydrogen-powered engines for locomotives and ships that he plans to reveal in the next 12 months. Last week, FFI said it purchased 120 hauler trucks—about half the size of Fortescue’s current fleet—to retrofit with FFI’s hydrogen-powered engines. “When I saw all those engines running pollution free, I thought, ‘We finally have the smell of the future: no smell. The sound of the future: no sound,’” Forrest says. “‘And a sign of the future: Just as, if not more, efficient than oil and gas or coal.’” Unlike blue or gray hydrogen—which both emit carbon—making green hydrogen produces no carbon, but it requires gargantuan resources. When paired with renewable energy like wind or solar power, a machine called an electrolyzer is used to split water into hydrogen. Then, either in gaseous form, in liquid form—stored at sub-250 degrees—or along with ammonia, the hydrogen is then transported in tanks loaded on ships, trains or trucks. When the electron-rich fuel is used in a fuel cell to make electricity, water vapor is the only emission.

PROMOTION

Transforming Lives Across Southeast Asia Nu Skin has been promoting goodness, wellness and sustainability in this region for the past 25 years, realizing its vision to become a global leader in the beauty and wellness industry. Leading beauty and wellness company Nu Skin has been positively impacting people's lives in Southeast Asia for the past quartercentury through groundbreaking research and development, technological innovations, and signiﬁcant community eﬀorts. The success of its endeavors is reflected in the impressive list of awards and achievements it has chalked up over this period. Among other accolades, Nu Skin was named the world’s No. 1 brand for Beauty Device Systems for four consecutive years*, and Pharmanex was named No. 1 weight management and wellbeing brand in Malaysia and Singapore** by Euromonitor International. Nu Skin's success is also largely due to its extensive network of distributors who invest considerable time and effort into, and are dedicated to, promoting the brand, leading to them becoming successful entrepreneurs themselves. They have not only built rewarding businesses for themselves over the past 25 years, but have helped others transform their lives, and raised the industry's level of professionalism. The company's greatest impact, however, comes from its commitment to scientific

ageLOC Reset

innovation grounded in a rigorous R&D process supervised by a world-class team of scientists whose research and insights are dedicated to changing the way the world views aging. Led by these insights, Nu Skin developed ageLOC proprietary scientific research to address the underlying causes of aging, such as gene expressions associated with the process of becoming older, rather than just its symptoms. “Our knowledge and understanding of these learnings are applied to the development of proprietary, innovative, safe, and effective products. We are revolutionizing the nutrition and personal care industries with products that offer comprehensive antiaging solutions,” says Dr Joseph Chang, Nu Skin’s Chief Scientific Officer. Among its most recent innovative achievements is ageLOC Reset. Based on seven years of exclusive Nu Skin research, and powered by the company's anthocyanin blend, this new product has shown that it can help improve one's wellbeing and counteract the negative effects of a hectic lifestyle when combined with a healthy diet, regular exercise, and adequate sleep.

ageLOC LumiSpa iO with IoT technology

A Digital Ecosystem that Beneﬁts Everyone, Smart Beauty Devices, and AppDriven Customized Regimes Being a company that prioritizes innovation, it is not surprising that Nu Skin is also leveraging digital technology to improve the eﬃciency of its processes, and better engage with its customers. It recently launched EMPOWERME, a new digital ecosystem and strategy that recommends personalized beauty and wellness products through interactive and engaging digital experiences. In this way, Nu Skin can provide holistic solutions across the beauty and wellness spectrum, integrating its products into the customer experience. These solutions include digital apps such as Nu Skin Vera, which enables customers to participate in AI-driven skincare consultations, monitor their skin’s improvement with selfies, and order products, among other features. Nu Skin distributors also use Vera to help their customers find the best products through intuitive questionnaires, top-of-theline facial scanning technology, and Intelligent Recommendations, an innovative AI

Inner Focus Collagen Plus

PROMOTION

such as Intelligent Recommendations that helps create customized regimes and a seamless connection to social sharing communities,” says Dr Vicky Leevutinun, President of Nu Skin Southeast Asia and Pacific. The first beauty device that incorporates IoT technology will be the ageLOC LumiSpa iO. This dual-action skincare device helps deliver skin renewal and deep cleansing benefits in a single action. Nu Skin researchers also evaluated visible results when the regime is combined with Inner FocusTM Collagen Plus***.

Dr Vicky Leevutinun, President of Nu Skin Southeast Asia and Paciﬁc

“Through our digital ecosystem, we intend to attract, connect, and nurture our prospects while building a long-term relationship with our customers, who want personalized service, products, and solutions that address their needs.” that uses algorithms for product personalization. Following that, Nu Skin Stela tracks distributors’ sales volume and commissions and manages their client lists. “Through our digital ecosystem, we intend to attract, connect, and nurture our prospects while building a long-term relationship with our customers, who want personalized service, products, and solutions that address their needs. With EMPOWERME, we can connect them and aﬃliates through digital tools

Fostering a Culture of Good: Initiating Community Outreach Programs and Nurturing Future Generations In addition to its business operations, Nu Skin aims to be an agent for positive change by caring for the planet, improving the lives of children, nourishing future generations, initiating community outreach programs, and investing in the global community. Nu Skin Force for Good Foundation, for example, works to improve children’s health, education, and economic circumstances, while Nu Skin Nourish the Children is a global initiative that distributes food to children suffering from malnutrition. Furthermore, the foundation also supports the Southeast Asia Children’s Heart Fund (SEACHF), raising funds to cover the surgery fees for affected children, and partnering with local hospitals and healthcare professionals who are equally passionate about saving the lives of children born with congenital heart diseases in Southeast Asia. The brand’s distributors can choose to donate 1% of their monthly commissions towards SEACHF. In terms of sustainability, Nu Skin is striving to improve its product packaging by 2030. The goal is to make everything recyclable, reusable, reduced or renewable. In 2021

alone, it saved 131 tons of plastic and over 34 tons of paper under this initiative. In a rapidly changing world, Nu Skin continues to evolve, adapt and emerge stronger. With the vision to become the world’s leading integrated beauty and wellness company, and a mission to be a global force for good, Nu Skin hopes to continue to change lives through its business and product innovations. “Nu Skin will continue to transform generations across Southeast Asia and globally. We want to empower individuals to discover their best selves through our integrated beauty and wellness solutions and business opportunities,” maintains Dr Leevutinun.

Join Nu Skin’s 25th Anniversary Celebration! This live virtual event for Nu Skin Southeast Asia from July 21 to 24, 2022, celebrates the brand’s success, honours the distributors, and will introduce new innovative products. Discover these along with the ageLOC beauty devices and Pharmanex products. Admission is free: visit https://www. nuskin.com/sealive/en/home.html

*Source: Euromonitor International Limited; Retail Value RSP terms; all channels; 2017 to 2020. Beauty Systems are at-home Skin Care Beauty Devices used exclusively with or recommended to be used with a topical consumable of the same brand. Claim verification based on Euromonitor custom research and methodology conducted January-March of 2021. Sales of at-home skin care beauty devices includes sales of electric facial cleansers as defined in Passport database. This category does not include haircare/removal appliances, body shavers, and oral care appliances. **Source: Euromonitor International Limited; Consumer Health 2022ed, per Weight Management and Wellbeing category definition, retail value RSP 2021, data. ***Product name may vary from market to market.

www.nuskin.com

INVESTING By Kevin Dowd

From The Ground Up

By investing in hundreds of startups at the earliest stages and targeting overlooked markets, M AGN U S GR I M EL A N D and A N TL E R are putting their own twist on the entrepreneurial dream.

A After finishing a two-year stint in Norway’s naval special forces, Magnus Grimeland arrived at Harvard as a 23-year-old freshman in 2003. He promptly caught the tech bug, which put him in an opportune place at an opportune time. Grimeland befriended a classmate named Eduardo Saverin. He rowed on the crew team, where he met Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. He might have even worked for Mark Zuckerberg at TheFacebook, as it was then known, if he weren’t also juggling classes and athletics and caring for his infant son. “I was close to applying for one of their internships. They more or less hired anyone in the early days,” Grimeland recalls with a wry grin. “I think anyone who took those internships is incredibly well off right now.” Unlike Saverin, who was one of Facebook’s cofounders and is now worth $11.4 billion, or the litigious Winklevoss twins ($4 billion each), Grimeland was only on the fringes of the Zuckerberg phenomenon. But the entrepreneurial inclination rubbed off. After graduation and a stint at McKinsey, Grimeland would go on to work for a different internet billionaire, Rocket Internet’s Oliver Samwer, and help him build Luxembourg-based Global Fashion Group into an e-commerce conglomerate with more than $1.6 billion in sales. Now, Grimeland wants to reinvent startup investing. His latest venture is Antler, which was founded in Singapore but has no formal headquarters. Antler is trying FORBES ASIA

to combine aspects of a startup studio, incubator, accelerator and venture firm into a global company-creation machine. What Sequoia has done in venture capital and Y Combinator as an accelerator, Grimeland hopes to replicate at an even earlier stage of the startup lifecycle. Antler canvasses the world for potential founders—often from emerging markets like Jakarta, Nairobi, Sao Paulo and Ho Chi Minh City that Grimeland feels are overlooked by other VCs, and often poaching them from successful companies like Cisco and McAfee. “We love that,” Grimeland says. “For example, we reached out to the head of product at Spotify and said, ‘Hey, you know, big congrats on building Spotify—isn’t it about time for you to leave and build your own billiondollar business?’” Some Antler founders are recruits. Others find the program on their own. But none are guaranteed entry, and all must go through the same application process: Grimeland expects to receive around 100,000 applications this year, of whom about 2.5% will be accepted. Those who enter the program leave their old jobs, betting they will be able to create a better one on their own. Antler offers only a stipend of up to $2,500 to offset living expenses. The programs range from six to 12 weeks during which participants hunt for cofounders, develop a business model and try to convince Antler they’re worthy of initial funding. Antler usually decides whether to invest—typically between $100,000 and $200,000 for a 10% stake— before a company is even incorporated. Grimeland started Antler in 2017 with $500,000 in capital from his time in the fashion industry. A year later, he raised $6 million from a group of colleagues and fellow entrepreneurs. Today, Antler manages about $500 million in assets, raising money from the likes of $920 billion British asset manager Schroders, the International Finance Corporation (an affiliate of the World Bank) and his old friend Saverin. It operates 21 offices on six continents, with a network of advisors and operators in each city, and it has invested in more than 450 startups. But to succeed in the long term, Antler will have to stand out from a rapidly growing crowd of incubators, J U LY 2 0 2 2

Magnus Grimeland

COURTESY OF ANTLER

INVESTING

studios and other early investors. “It’s a complete flood,” says Abby Miller Levy, cofounder and managing partner at early-stage firm Primetime Partners. Investment in angel and pre-seed deals in the U.S. climbed from $7.9 billion five years ago to $11.2 billion in 2020 to $17.6 billion in 2021, per PitchBook. “It’s like five funds a day—it’s just a tremendous explosion of new funds,” Levy continues. “There’s so much money in the space, so it’s hard to get too excited about one team.” Antler’s portfolio companies are young. So far, about one in eight of the firm’s investments have failed, and the firm has no unicorns or major exits to prove Grimeland’s vision. But there are promising prospects. Reebelo, where people buy and sell used smartphones and laptops, is approaching $100 million in annual sales and claims J U LY 2 0 2 2

10,000 monthly customers. XanPool helps process crypto payments for more than 400 clients, including South Korean fintech unicorn Toss, and raised $27 million last year led by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures. Charlotte Ekelund, then 32, had long harbored entrepreneurial dreams when she first learned about Antler in 2019. “I always knew I wanted to start my own business at some point,” she says. “But I didn’t really know with whom, or what it would be.” She entered Antler’s second cohort in Sweden, met a tech whiz named Oleg Danylenko, and started Teemyco, a video and audio chat app for remote offices. Once the pandemic began, Teemyco’s services were in high demand. Since then, the company has raised three more rounds of venture capital totaling $5.2 million. FORBES ASIA

By backing founders so early, Antler is often able to invest at lower valuations than the competition, creating an appealing equation for LPs. “Typically, we are able to get into these companies at a pre-money valuation of $1 million, in that vicinity,” says Trond Riiber Knudsen, a founding investor in Antler who met Grimeland when they worked together at McKinsey. “If these companies are qualified to go into the venture economy and go into seed rounds, Series A rounds, Series B—look at the top valuations we see in those rounds, and the upside is phenomenal.” Grimeland originally worked with Rocket Internet as the cofounder of a fashion e-commerce company called Zalora, where he helped build the company’s marketplace and establish local operations in Southeast Asia. Founded by billionaire Oliver Samwer and his brothers, Alexander and Marc, Rocket has a controversial reputation in venture capital due to its copycat model—it takes successful business models from one market and starts new companies to imitate them in another. Think Amazon for Southeast Asia or a German clone of Groupon. FORBES ASIA

From left: Antler COO Fridtjof Berge, CCO Vegard Medbo and CEO Magnus Grimeland.

After two years and more than $200 million in funding, Zalora rolled up into Global Fashion Group, where Grimeland became COO. But after watching several colleagues leave to start their own businesses, he realized how many talented tech workers were languishing in jobs that didn’t fully utilize their talents. Thus Antler. “Let’s find these people and be the best possible partner to them from day one—invest in really strong teams and founders, not in companies,” Grimeland says. “Our role is backing and supporting great people.” The first Antler program launched in Singapore in 2018. About 1,400 people applied, 62 were accepted, and three months later, Antler cut checks to its first 13 portfolio companies. Every participant in Antler’s programs gets access to a dating app-style service where they can look for cofounders, a library of business playbooks and strategies, office space, and a curriculum of lessons taught by VCs and entrepreneurs, including executives from the likes of Snapchat, Square and YouTube. Some of the most popular sessions cover how to think about J U LY 2 0 2 2

COURTESY OF ANTLER

INVESTING

J U LY 2 0 2 2

months after incorporation. But he thinks the appeal of an Antler-type approach is evident. “I think these are exceptionally smart, lightweight plays, where if you do it right, it should work massively in the favor of the quote-unquote incubator,” Iskold says, “because you’re sucking in all this brilliant talent.” Grimeland touts Antler’s track record of investing in people who are often overlooked by the VC establishment. It backs founders from 70 countries. About 35% of its portfolio companies have a female founder, and 50% have a female CEO. “You can actually tap into all this untapped talent that didn’t necessarily have the opportunities I had,” Grimeland says.

“ YO U C A N A C T U A L LY TA P I N TO A L L T H I S U N TA P P E D TA L E N T T H AT D I D N ’ T N EC E S S A R I LY H AV E T H E O P P O R T U N I T I E S I H A D.”

Oleg Danylenko and Charlotte Ekelund cofounded Teemyco after going through an Antler program in Sweden.

That idea fills a genuine need in VC, according to Jenny Fielding, managing director at The Fund, a New York-based pre-seed investor. “A lot of the big boys on Sand Hill Road are saying, ‘Oh, yeah, now we’re doing mostly seed, we do preseed,’” Fielding says. “The reality is, when they say they do pre-seed, what that means is that they fund their buddies that they already know, or they fund their portfolio companies that are starting new companies.” Those VC powers and other early-stage investors are pushing into the space to meet LPs’ desire for outsized returns. But if hoped-for profits fail to materialize, firms like Antler could see demand decline. “It feels exceptionally irrational to me,” 2048’s Iskold says of the recent spending spree. “People are just throwing money at founders without really spending the time and really thinking through business models, founders, how hard it is to build a really good, sustainable business.” Grimeland knows that the path to the top of the VC mountaintop will be a difficult one. He also thinks Antler is off to a pretty good start. “In today’s venture capital markets, you need to build real, systematic value,” Grimeland says. “And I think we’ve really managed to create that systematic value, by the way we built things ground-up through having access to talent all across the globe.” FORBES ASIA

67 INVESTING

problem-solving as a founder and how to understand common startup metrics. But founders have different experiences depending on where they are in the companybuilding process. Some focus on narrowing down potential business ideas or finding cofounders. Others work closely with Antler’s network of more than 600 advisors and operators, people like Andreas Ehn, the first CTO of Spotify, and Gary Dolman, cofounder of digital bank Monzo, to improve a specific aspect of their business—say their pricing model or product mix. Lawrence Summers, the former U.S. Treasury Secretary who was president of Harvard when Grimeland was a student there, serves on Antler’s advisory board. After Antler invests in a company, it continues to advise its startups on fundraising and growth strategies and introduce them to investors—a perk for the companies, who get access to capital, and for Antler’s LPs, who get a first look at sought-after startup deals. Antler also invests in follow-on rounds itself, with more than 200 such deals in the last year alone. It’s a volume-based approach. Vacuuming up tens of thousands of applications and working with hundreds of founders each year guarantees plenty of bites at the apple. Other companybuilding firms have different strategies: Atomic, a pioneer of the studio model, typically creates companies with its own in-house team, then brings in a long-term CEO once they’ve found traction. It launched 14 companies last year, compared to 190 at Antler. Alex Iskold is the managing partner at 2048 Ventures, a New York-based pre-seed firm that invests later than Antler, typically around six

Emma Grede

These entrepreneurs and executives have created or run some of the nation’s most successful businesses, ranging from almonds to aerospace.

A rout in the U.S. stock market this spring pushed down the combined net worth of America’s richest self-made women to $111 billion, a 6% drop from last year, and lowered the admission cutoff to $215 million, down from $225 million a year ago. Thirty-eight of the 100 on this list are worth less than in 2021, but 51 are wealthier, including seven newcomers and seven who return to the ranks after having previously fallen off. Among the notable new faces: movie star Sandra Bullock and recurring Shark Tank judge Emma Grede. Fifty are featured here. For the full ranking, please go to forbes.com/self-made-women. Edited by Kerry A. Dolan and Chase Peterson-Withorn

Sandra Bullock

SELF-MADE WOMEN J U LY 2 0 2 2

MIKE MARSLAND/GETTY IMAGES; ALLY GREEN

AMERICA’S RICHEST

1. DIANE HENDRICKS

4. MARIAN ILITCH

$4 billion ©

SOURCE: Building supplies AGE: 75 • RESIDENCE: Afton, WI SELF-MADE SCORE: v

SOURCE: Little Caesars AGE: 89 • RESIDENCE: Bingham Farms, MI SELF-MADE SCORE: v

SOURCE: Car dealerships AGE: 78 • RESIDENCE: Salt Lake City SELF-MADE SCORE: t

Hendricks has benefited from a pandemic-inspired residential housing boom. Her fortune has grown by more than $1 billion this past year, thanks to record sales at ABC Supply, the wholesale building supplies distributor she cofounded with her husband (d. 2017). Its sales hit nearly $15 billion, up from $12.1 billion in 2020.

Another record year for Little Caesars, the pizza chain Ilitch cofounded with her husband, Mike (d. 2017), in 1959; systemwide sales reached $4.8 billion in 2021, per Technomic, up from $4.5 billion. Ilitch’s Detroit Red Wings missed the NHL playoffs for the sixth straight season after having qualified 25 years in a row. She and her son Chris, who runs Ilitch Holdings, are partnering with billionaire developer Stephen Ross as lead donors of a $250 million University of Michigan research-and-education center in Detroit.

Starting with one Toyota dealership in 1979, Miller and her husband, Larry (d. 2009), built the Larry H. Miller Group into five dozen car dealerships in the western U.S. In late 2021 she sold the dealerships to Georgiabased Asbury Automotive Group for nearly $3.5 billion. This followed the group’s almost $1.7 billion sale of the NBA’s Utah Jazz to Utah billionaire Ryan Smith in 2020.

2. JUDY FAULKNER

SOURCE: Health IT AGE: 78 • RESIDENCE: Madison, WI SELF-MADE SCORE: u

6. THAI LEE

Her medical records company, Epic Systems, booked $3.8 billion in 2021 revenue, up 13% from 2020. The Verona, Wisconsin–based business rolled out a Covid-19 vaccine passport tool now available to 106 million patients who use its MyChart software. Faulkner owns 47% of the business she founded in her basement in 1979. Known for being tightlipped, the company finally joined Twitter last year using the @EpicShares handle.

3. JUDY LOVE $5.2 billion § ¨ SOURCE: Retail & gas stations AGE: 84 • RESIDENCE: Oklahoma City SELF-MADE SCORE: v

$4.1 billion § ¨ SOURCE: IT provider AGE: 63 • RESIDENCE: Austin, TX SELF-MADE SCORE: v

IT provider SHI International, which she cofounded in 1989 and runs as CEO, posted record sales of $12.3 billion in 2021, up 10% from 2020, which was another record year. Demand for IT security solutions as well as support for expanding remote and hybrid working models were key drivers of growth. Eren Ozmen

Expansion continues at Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores, which Judy and her husband, Tom, founded in 1964. The $25.5 billion (est. sales) company, now run by two of their sons, opened 38 new locations in 2021 and 18 in the first five months of 2022. Judy is a director of the Love Family Fund, the family’s charitable foundation.

4. JOHNELLE HUNT

7. LYNDA RESNICK $4 billion § ¨ SOURCE: Agriculture AGE: 79 • RESIDENCE: Beverly Hills, CA SELF-MADE SCORE: u

The marketing chief and co-owner of agricultural giant Wonderful Co. presides over a $5 billion (sales) operation that grows and sells pistachios, almonds, pomegranates and mandarin oranges from 54,630 hectares of orchards in Texas, Mexico and California’s Central Valley. The California Institute of Technology broke ground on its 7,385-square-meter Resnick Sustainability Center, funded by a $750 million pledge from the Resnicks, in May.

9. MEG WHITMAN $3.1 billion ª SOURCE: eBay AGE: 65 • RESIDENCE: Palo Alto, CA SELF-MADE SCORE: s

This longtime Silicon Valley executive— Whitman ran eBay for a decade and oversaw Hewlett-Packard’s split into HP Inc. and HPE, and the bulk of her wealth comes from stakes in these companies—was nominated by U.S. President Joe Biden in December 2021 to be the U.S. ambassador to Kenya. The Republican, who donated $500,000 to Biden’s presidential campaign, is awaiting U.S. Senate confirmation.

10. EREN OZMEN

$4.3 billion ©

SOURCE: Trucking AGE: 90 • RESIDENCE: Fayetteville, AR SELF-MADE SCORE: t

Hunt rang in her 90th birthday this year at an Arkansas Razorbacks basketball game, where the state’s richest woman was treated to cake and cheers during halftime. The matriarch of J.B. Hunt Transport Services, which she cofounded in 1961 with her late husband, has plenty to celebrate. Strong demand for freight transport pushed revenue up 26% last year, to a record $12.2 billion. She is the largest shareholder, with a 17% stake.

Sierra Space, which Ozmen and her husband spun off from their aerospace-anddefense company, Sierra Nevada, raised $1.4 billion at a $4.5 billion valuation in November. That transaction helped boost her fortune by $1.2 billion. The Turkish immigrant, who came to the U.S. in 1981, put herself through business school at the University of Nevada, Reno by cleaning an office building and selling baklava.

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$4.3 billion ª

$6.7 billion ©

TIM PANNELL FOR FORBES

7. GAIL MILLER

Kim Kardashian

10. OPRAH WINFREY $2.6 billion ª SOURCE: Television shows AGE: 68 • RESIDENCE: Montecito, CA SELF-MADE SCORE: w

12. PEGGY CHERNG

$2.4 billion ©

SOURCE: Fast food AGE: 74 • RESIDENCE: Las Vegas SELF-MADE SCORE: v

A McDonnell Douglas and 3M veteran, she quit to help her husband, Andrew, open the first Panda Express restaurant in 1983. The two still run the $4.5 billion (2021 U.S. revenue) fast casual chain as co-CEOs, overseeing its 2,400 outposts. The active real estate investors—who own houses, apartments and an office park in Pasadena, California, and Hawaii, among others—joined a consortium last fall to buy the Cosmopolitan resort in Las Vegas for $5.65 billion.

15. JAYSHREE ULLAL

12. DORIS FISHER

17. ELAINE WYNN

$2.4 billion ª

$1.9 billion ©

$1.7 billion ª

SOURCE: Gap AGE: 90 • RESIDENCE: San Francisco SELF-MADE SCORE: t

SOURCE: Computer networking AGE: 61 • RESIDENCE: Saratoga, CA SELF-MADE SCORE: s

SOURCE: Casinos, hotels AGE: 80 • RESIDENCE: Las Vegas SELF-MADE SCORE: u

The Gap cofounder listed the Bay Area estate she shared with her husband, Don (d. 2009), for three decades for $100 million in 2021. The couple borrowed $63,000 to open the first Gap store in 1969. Fisher remains an honorary lifetime director of the $16.7 billion (fiscal year 2021 revenue) apparel company, whose brands include Old Navy, Athleta and Banana Republic.

Ullal spent 15 years at Cisco before taking over as CEO of cloud networking company Arista in 2008. She took Arista public in 2014; shares are up nearly 700% since. She also sits on the board of cloud computing firm Snowflake, which went public in the fall of 2020.

The Queen of Las Vegas cofounded Wynn Resorts with her ex-husband, Steve Wynn, in 2002. After he resigned in 2018 amid sexual assault and rape allegations (which he denied), Elaine reshaped the board, testified in front of regulators and fought for the company to keep its gaming license. She is the largest individual shareholder at 8%; serves as chair of Communities in Schools, which in February got a $133.5 million gift from MacKenzie Scott; and is an avid art collector.

14. ALICE SCHWARTZ $2.3 billion ª SOURCE: Biotech AGE: 95 • RESIDENCE: El Cerrito, CA SELF-MADE SCORE: u

A cofounder of Bio-Rad Laboratories with her husband, David (d. 2012), Schwartz stepped down from the company’s board of directors in April after 55 years. During the pandemic, the biotech firm behind 10,000 life science research and clinical diagnostics products launched a Covid-19 wastewater testing kit to aid in community detection of the virus.

16. KIM KARDASHIAN

$1.8 billion ©

SOURCE: Cosmetics, shapewear, reality TV AGE: 41 • RESIDENCE: Hidden Hills, CA SELF-MADE SCORE: t

She’s been making headlines for finalizing her divorce from rapper Kanye West, dating comedian Pete Davidson and claiming that it “seems like nobody wants to work these days.” She’s been getting richer, meanwhile, from her shapewear line, Skims, which raised $240 million in January from firms led by the likes of billionaires Stephen Mandel and Josh Kushner, doubling its valuation to $3.2 billion in less than a year. She owns an estimated 35% of the business.

18. SHERYL SANDBERG $1.6 billion ª SOURCE: Facebook AGE: 52 • RESIDENCE: Menlo Park, CA SELF-MADE SCORE: s

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg credited his longtime chief operating officer with being the key factor behind the social media outfit’s fast growth. “I think she has a very good combination of IQ and EQ,” Zuckerberg said in a March podcast. A month later, the Wall Street Journal J U LY 2 0 2 2

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The former TV talk show host owns just 5% of OWN, the cable channel she started in 2011. She swapped the rest of her stake in 2020 for shares in Discovery, which merged with Warner Media in April. Winfrey invested in both shapewear company Spanx and the maternity services firm Maven Clinic last year.

Novak Djokovic

Vera Wang

Priyanka Chopra

Volodymyr Zelensky

AMERICA’S RICHEST SELF-MADE WOMEN

19. SAFRA CATZ $1.5 billion ª SOURCE: Software AGE: 60 • RESIDENCE: Redwood City, CA SELF-MADE SCORE: s

Oracle’s Israel-born CEO is credited with spearheading the software firm’s aggressive acquisition strategy, including leading last December’s $28.5 billion all-cash offer to buy medical records company Cerner. The deal has been pushed back several times because only 10% of Cerner shareholders have signed on. Catz was appointed to President Biden’s Homeland Security advisory council in March.

19. JENNY JUST $1.5 billion § ¨ SOURCE: Fintech AGE: 54 • RESIDENCE: Winnetka, IL SELF-MADE SCORE: u

Just and her husband, Matt Hulsizer, have made a fortune from an early investment in Apex Fintech Solutions, which handles the back-end trading and technology for other fintechs, such as SoFi and eToro. The company’s $4.7 billion SPAC merger deal was scrapped in December, but Forbes still pegs its value at about $3 billion. The pair’s Chicagobased investment firm, Peak6, recently took a stake in the U.K.’s Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club.

21. WEILI DAI

Dai and her husband, Sehat Sutardja, were forced out of semiconductor company Marvell Technology, which they founded, in 2016 over an investigation into accounting issues; no evidence of fraud was found. In 2018, she cofounded artificial intelligence startup MeetKai, which is now building its own VRpowered metaverse. The couple own seven residences at the Trump Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip and a luxury condo building nearby.

Sara Blakely

21. RIHANNA $1.4 billion ª SOURCE: Music, cosmetics AGE: 34 • RESIDENCE: Los Angeles SELF-MADE SCORE: w

Barbados’ first billionaire was named a National Hero on November 30, the same day the island nation became a republic. She followed that with a win for her Savage X Fenty lingerie company in January, when the brand raised $125 million; it is now reportedly weighing a $3 billion (est. valuation) IPO. The pop star–turned–cosmetics mogul, most of whose fortune stems from her estimated 50% stake in Fenty Beauty, gave birth in May to her first child.

23. SARA BLAKELY

$1.1 billion ©

SOURCE: Spanx AGE: 51 • RESIDENCE: Atlanta SELF-MADE SCORE: u

The Spanx founder is a billionaire yet again after selling a majority of her 21-yearold shapewear line to private equity giant Blackstone in November. Oprah Winfrey (No. 10) and Whitney Wolfe Herd (No. 33) jumped in as investors at the close of the deal, which valued Spanx at $1.2 billion. Blakely, who is still CEO and holds a “significant equity stake,” celebrated the sale by giving all Spanx employees (an estimated 350) first-class plane tickets to anywhere in the world and $10,000 in spending money.

24. NEERJA SETHI $1 billion § ¨ SOURCE: IT consulting, outsourcing AGE: 67 • RESIDENCE: Fisher Island, FL SELF-MADE SCORE: u

Sethi and husband Bharat Desai cofounded IT services firm Syntel in their Troy, Michigan, apartment using $2,000 in savings. They sold it to French IT firm Atos SE for $3.4 billion in 2018. Both immigrants, they met in the U.S. while working for IT firm Tata Consultancy Services.

25. TORY BURCH $900 million § ¨ SOURCE: Fashion AGE: 55 • RESIDENCE: New York City SELF-MADE SCORE: t

Burch’s namesake lifestyle brand—founded in 2004 and known for its preppy clothing, shoes and accessories—bounced back from the pandemic in 2021, with revenue hitting an estimated $1.7 billion, up from $1.2 billion the prior year. She owns an estimated 28% of the company, whose CEO is her husband, Pierre-Yves Roussel. It officially opened its new flagship store in New York’s SoHo neighborhood in August 2021. J U LY 2 0 2 2

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published a story reporting that Sandberg pressured U.K. tabloid the Daily Mail in 2018 to drop a negative story about her then-boyfriend, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick (she is now engaged to TV producer Tom Bernthal); Meta denied the report. An upcoming HBO series about the company and its scandals will star British actress Claire Foy as Sandberg.

25. ANNE DINNING

27. CLAIRE HUGHES JOHNSON

$870 million ©

SOURCE: Payments software AGE: 49 • RESIDENCE: Milton, MA SELF-MADE SCORE: s

Hughes Johnson spent six years as chief operating officer of payments giant Stripe, now the second-most-valuable venturebacked startup in the U.S., worth $95 billion. She stepped into an advisory role in April 2021 and is investing in tech startups including CoinTracker and Coda. This year she joined the boards of marketing software firm HubSpot and self-driving technology company Aurora.

28. APRIL ANTHONY

$790 million ©

SOURCE: Health care AGE: 55 • RESIDENCE: Dallas SELF-MADE SCORE: u

The Texan got her start as controller of a distressed home health care company in the early 1990s. She turned the firm around and ended up buying it. She then founded Encompass Home Health & Hospice in 1998, selling it in 2015 to publicly traded HealthSouth (now Encompass Health) for $750 million. She stayed on as CEO until June 2021. Encompass is now suing her for trade secrets theft and violating her noncompete agreement, alleging she encouraged Encompass executives to join a competing venture owned by a private equity firm associated with her. She disputes the claims.

29. SHEILA JOHNSON

$780 million ©

SOURCE: Cable television AGE: 73 • RESIDENCE: The Plains, VA SELF-MADE SCORE: v

Johnson cofounded Black Entertainment Television, sold it to Viacom for $3 billion in 2001 and has since poured the proceeds into high-end resorts and sports teams. She has stakes in the WNBA’s Washington J U LY 2 0 2 2

30. ROBYN JONES $770 million ª SOURCE: Insurance AGE: 59 • RESIDENCE: Fort Worth, TX SELF-MADE SCORE: v

Jones is cofounder and vice chair of Goosehead Insurance, which she started in 2003. Her husband, Mark, joined a year later. The insurance firm opened nearly 700 franchise locations in 2021—an increase of almost 50%—but net income fell by 56%, to $8.3 million, on sales of $151 million. In 2021, the Joneses bought 51,000 hectares of timberland, which they dubbed Flathead Ridge Ranch, in Montana, where they have a home.

30. MARISSA MAYER $770 million ª SOURCE: Google, Yahoo AGE: 47 • RESIDENCE: Palo Alto, CA SELF-MADE SCORE: s

One of Google’s earliest employees, Mayer left in 2012 to become CEO of Yahoo. She stepped down in 2017 when Verizon acquired the internet company. Now she’s focusing on her startup, Sunshine, which launched in 2020 and plans to offer subscriptions for a suite of productivity apps, starting with a contacts list app now in beta. Mayer demolished three townhomes next to her Palo Alto residence earlier this year to make room for a pool and an additional housing unit.

32. SUSAN WOJCICKI $765 million ª SOURCE: Google AGE: 53 • RESIDENCE: Los Altos, CA SELF-MADE SCORE: s

The 16th employee to join Google, Wojcicki has served as CEO of YouTube since 2014. The popular video platform— which generated nearly $29 billion in revenue in 2021, a 46% increase from the prior year—is bringing Wojcicki into contact with lawmakers and policy officials. She met with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in April over concerns about Spanish-language misinformation videos, and with USAID administrator Samantha Power to discuss efforts to quell disinformation and support independent media. Her sister is Anne Wojcicki (No. 87).

33. WHITNEY WOLFE HERD $740 million ª SOURCE: Dating app AGE: 32 • RESIDENCE: Austin, TX SELF-MADE SCORE: u

Wolfe Herd’s reign as the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire lasted just 10 months. Shares of Bumble, the dating app she cofounded and runs, have plunged nearly 65% from their February 2021 initial public offering, despite 24% revenue growth in the first quarter this year. Wolfe Herd launched Bumble in 2014 with financing from Russian billionaire Andrey Andreev; he sold his stake to Blackstone Group in 2019, following a Forbes investigation into Badoo, a dating company he founded.

34. NANCY ZIMMERMAN $725 million § ¨ SOURCE: Hedge funds AGE: 58 • RESIDENCE: Boston SELF-MADE SCORE: u

Zimmerman is the cofounder of Bracebridge Capital, the Boston-based hedge fund firm that manages $12 billion in net assets for endowments including Yale and other institutional and high-networth investors. She sits on the board of nonprofit Social Finance and has helped fund Covid-19 research at the Ragon Institute of MGH (Massachusetts General Hospital), MIT and Harvard.

35. MICHELLE ZATLYN $700 million ª SOURCE: Cybersecurity AGE: 42 • RESIDENCE: San Francisco SELF-MADE SCORE: u

Shares of San Francisco–based Cloudflare, the internet infrastructure and security company Zatlyn cofounded in 2009, have slid nearly 70% since their November peak, deflating her once-ten-figure fortune. But the future still looks bright for Cloudflare’s president and chief operating officer. In December, the board proposed massive performance-based stock options for her and CEO Matthew Prince that could be worth more than $3 billion each if they fully vest. Shareholders are set to vote on the awards in early June.

36. KIT CRAWFORD $680 million ª SOURCE: Clif Bar AGE: 63 • RESIDENCE: St. Helena, CA SELF-MADE SCORE: u

Owners of Clif Bar & Company, Crawford and her husband, Gary Erickson, walked away from a $120 million offer for the business in 2000 and continued to run FORBES ASIA

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Dinning is a member of quantitative hedge fund D.E. Shaw’s six-person executive committee. She joined in 1990, after earning a Ph.D. in computer science from NYU, and started off building algorithms to forecast Japanese stocks. The firm now has roughly $60 billion in assets. Dinning sits on the boards of the Robin Hood Foundation, Code.org, Math for America and Partners in Health.

Mystics, the NBA’s Washington Wizards and the NHL’s Washington Capitals. Her Salamander Hotels & Resorts owns or operates six properties, including Aspen Meadows ski resort, which it began running in May. A month earlier, Best Buy billionaire Richard Schulze picked Johnson to run his 120-hectare Aurora resort in Anguilla.

it as co-CEOs until 2020. They still own 80% of the energy bar outfit, which Forbes values at $1.7 billion, but spend most of their time on their Clif Family Winery in Napa Valley, as well as on White Road Investments, which puts money into sustainable and active lifestyle brands.

37. LISA SU

CEO of semiconductor firm Advanced Micro Devices since 2014, Su is credited with helping lead one of the tech industry’s greatest turnarounds, driving shares up nearly 30-fold during her tenure. In February, AMD closed its $49 billion acquisition of adaptable computing powerhouse Xilinx. AMD posted blowout first-quarter earnings amid a long-lasting chip shortage. MIT announced in April that it would rename Building 12, the home of MIT.nano, after Su, the first alumna to make a gift for a building that will bear her name.

38. ANASTASIA SOARE $660 million ª SOURCE: Cosmetics AGE: 64 • RESIDENCE: Beverly Hills, CA SELF-MADE SCORE: v

The Romanian immigrant made her early fortune selling “brow-shaping” products through her makeup company, Anastasia Beverly Hills. Soare remains CEO of the $230 million (est. sales) firm; her daughter, Claudia, is president. Her net worth is down almost $100 million this year as Fitch Ratings has repeatedly warned that the company’s capital structure—with $681 million in debt and lagging growth—is unsustainable.

39. JANICE BRYANT HOWROYD

$630 million ©

SOURCE: Staffing AGE: 69 • RESIDENCE: Las Vegas SELF-MADE SCORE: v

Revenue at Howroyd’s staffing firm, ActOne, has rebounded to pre-pandemic levels thanks to a growing number of job openings. The North Carolina native founded ActOne in 1978 with $1,500, a fax machine and a phone. She has written multiple books detailing her entrepreneurial success.

40. GWYNNE SHOTWELL

$620 million ©

SOURCE: SpaceX AGE: 58 • RESIDENCE: Jonesboro, TX SELF-MADE SCORE: s

While Elon Musk bids on Twitter and sends Tesla’s stock into convulsions, Shotwell calls the shots as president and chief operating officer of another Musk venture, SpaceX. Last fall, it launched the first completely private mission to orbit Earth, paid for by billionaire Jared Isaacman, and in April launched the first private mission to the international space station for customer Axiom Space. In December, it raised $337 million, bringing its valuation to over $100 billion.

41. KYLIE JENNER $600 million ª SOURCE: Cosmetics AGE: 24 • RESIDENCE: Hidden Hills, CA SELF-MADE SCORE: t

$600 million § ¨

Her Kylie Cosmetics relaunched with “clean and vegan” formulas last summer, pushing up sales, but the business—hit by the pandemic and a break with her former manufacturer—is still likely smaller than it was when Jenner sold 51% to beauty giant Coty in early 2020 at a $1.2 billion valuation. Jenner, who owns an estimated 44.1% of Kylie Cosmetics and continues to lead its creative direction.

SOURCE: Venture capital AGE: 50 • RESIDENCE: Palo Alto, CA SELF-MADE SCORE: v

$600 million § ¨

41. THERESIA GOUW

Acrew Capital, the venture capital firm she cofounded in 2019, has backed companies like Discord and Coinbase and has more than $1 billion under management, including a fund specifically focused on diversity. In April, she and the firm donated more than $1 million to Fisk University, a historically Black college. Born in Indonesia, she was the first female partner at Silicon Valley powerhouse Accel Partners, best known for its investment in Facebook.

41. MARY WEST SOURCE: Telemarketing AGE: 76 • RESIDENCE: San Diego SELF-MADE SCORE: u

West and her husband, Gary, cashed out of their telemarketing firm 16 years ago. Through their charitable foundation, they have supported a variety of health care causes, including for aging seniors. Civica Rx, a generic drug company cofounded by the foundation, announced in March that it will begin manufacturing insulin by 2024, aiming to sell it for no more than $30 per vial. J U LY 2 0 2 2

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Lisa Su

44. MARTINE ROTHBLATT

48. TAYLOR SWIFT

50. JAMIE KERN LIMA

$570 million ©

$550 million ©

SOURCE: Pharmaceuticals AGE: 67 • RESIDENCE: Satellite Beach, FL SELF-MADE SCORE: u

SOURCE: Music AGE: 32 • RESIDENCE: Nashville, TN SELF-MADE SCORE: u

SOURCE: Cosmetics AGE: 44 • RESIDENCE: Los Angeles SELF-MADE SCORE: v

A unit of United Therapeutics, which Rothblatt heads as CEO, grew a heart in a genetically altered pig that was successfully transplanted into a patient in January; the patient died two months later, possibly due to a pig virus. Rothblatt started the biotech in the mid-1990s to find a cure for her daughter’s rare blood disease (her daughter is now 38 years old). Prior to that she founded satellite radio company Sirius XM.

Swift made history in 2021 by notching four No. 1 albums in less than 16 months. She managed the feat by re-recording two of her early albums as Red (Taylor’s Version) and Fearless (Taylor’s Version) in defiance of her former label, which owns the originals. Swift has the rights to these new master recordings, allowing her to rebuild her catalog. The singer-songwriter still owns publishing rights to her early work, worth an estimated $200 million.

The former IT Cosmetics co-CEO founded and sold the beauty brand to L’Oréal in a $1.2 billion deal in 2016. She has invested some of the proceeds, which totaled at least $400 million, into such startups as Dutch Bros. coffee and The Duckhorn Portfolio, both of which have since gone public. Her 2021 memoir, Believe IT, was a New York Times bestseller for nine weeks.

44. KENDRA SCOTT $580 million ª SOURCE: Jewelry AGE: 48 • RESIDENCE: Austin, TX SELF-MADE SCORE: v

Scott started her namesake jewelry business in 2002 after she was unable to find color gemstone jewelry she could afford. She pledged $13 million in March to the Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership Institute at the University of Texas, Austin; she helped set up the institute, which supports women-led startups, in 2019.

44. CARYN SEIDMAN-BECKER

49. KATHLEEN HILDRETH

$560 million ©

SOURCE: Airplane maintenance AGE: 60 • RESIDENCE: Aubrey, TX SELF-MADE SCORE: u

Army veteran Hildreth—a West Point grad and service-disabled former helicopter pilot —cofounded defense contractor M1 Support Services in 2003 and helps run the company. It maintains military fighter jets such as F-15s and training jets like the T-38. Revenue declined to about $950 million in 2021 from $1.1 billion the prior year. She serves on the board of the Wounded Warrior Project.

M ETH O DO LOGY: To compile net worths, we valued individual assets including stakes in public companies using stock prices from May 13, 2022. We valued private companies by consulting with outside experts and conservatively comparing them with public companies. To be eligible for the list, women have to have substantially made their own fortunes in the U.S. and/or be U.S. citizens or permanent residents. While none inherited their wealth, some climbed farther and overcame more obstacles to get into the ranks. To measure just how far some have come, women are given a self-made score of 6 (hired hand) to 10 (rags-to-riches entrepreneur). We attempted to vet numbers with all list entrants. Some cooperated; others didn’t. Ages are as of June 14, 2022. For the full list, including details on the self-made scores, see forbes.com/self-made-women.

$580 million ª SOURCE: Airport security AGE: 49 • RESIDENCE: New York City SELF-MADE SCORE: u

Gwynne Shotwell

Seidman-Becker is cofounder and CEO of Clear Secure, which uses biometric data to help people speed through security lines at airports and sports stadiums. She took the company public in June 2021 at a $4.5 billion valuation. Despite doubling user enrollment to 12 million, shares have fallen nearly 30% since its IPO. She joined Home Depot’s board in March.

47. MADONNA

$575 million ©

JOHN SCIULLI/GETTY IMAGES

SOURCE: Music AGE: 63 • RESIDENCE: New York City SELF-MADE SCORE: v

Last year the 1980s icon resigned with her longtime musical home, Warner Music Group, keeping her recording catalog and song publishing rights under the same roof that housed them when the star was only just learning how to vogue. With digital artist Beeple, she auctioned three controversial NFTs that graphically depict a nude, digital Madonna giving birth to butterflies, centipedes and a tree; two of them sold for a combined $482,000. Proceeds are set to go to nonprofits that help support women and children. J U LY 2 0 2 2

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$580 million ª

THOUGHTS ON

On Investing 76

“Never accept conventional wisdom when it comes to finance. If others keep failing, why do you want to follow them?”

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” —Benjamin Franklin

—Ziad K. Abdelnour

“Why then did you not put my money in the bank, that at my coming I might have collected it with interest?” —Luke 19:23

“Just as the boom accelerated the rate of growth, so the crash enormously advanced the rate of discovery.” —John Kenneth Galbraith

Long-Term Optimist January, 2015

“No finance, no romance.” —Lyle Lovett

“The haves enjoyed a perfect view of the market; the have-nots never saw the market at all.” —Michael Lewis

“The ideas of debtor and creditor as to what constitutes a good time never coincide.” —P.G. Wodehouse

“Money amplifies our tendency to overreact, to swing from exuberance when things are going well to deep depression when they go wrong.” —Niall Ferguson FORBES ASIA

Some seven years ago, billionaire property tycoon Edwin Leong faced a situation similar to what he finds in his hometown of Hong Kong today. The territory then was facing one of its many periods of uncertainty due to street protests. Yet Leong believed in Hong Kong’s long-term prospects and continued to invest in property, often at bargain prices. Smart move—his net worth has gone from $2.9 billion in 2015 to this year’s $4.4 billion. In an article in the April/May edition, Leong retains his optimism for Hong Kong, despite the impact of Covid-19, social unrest, and simmering trade and other disputes between the U.S. and China. For his Tai Hung Fai company, he is making a major pivot in its property strategy to expand into residential projects, rather than his traditional focus on retail and commercial holdings. “Residential developments have a lot of demand in the market, so we are confident in what we are doing,” Leong says. He also takes the long view on this sector. “Obviously, right now, we didn’t have much success because we are newcomers,” Leong says. “It’s a learning experience for us.” SOURCES: GOODREADS.COM; GOOGLE BOOKS; FLASH BOYS BY MICHAEL LEWIS; BARTLEBY.COM.

“Every new invention that has changed and enlarged our mode of life has been accompanied by some new development in construction. The history of construction (including structural art and structural science, architecture and engineering) is the history of human progress, of what we call civilization.” —From the Oct. 15, 1928 Issue of Forbes

FINAL THOUGHT “For as long as there has been a stock market, some people whose stocks went down instead of up have accused Wall Street of robbing them.” —Malcolm Forbes

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In a 30-minute special, CNN’s Going Green highlights ĵ YH *HQ = FOLPDWH KHURHV IURP DFURVV WKH ZRUOG ZKR DUH OHDGLQJ WKH FKDUJH DQG ĵ QGLQJ VROXWLRQV WR VRPH RI RXU ELJJHVW HQYLURQPHQWDO FKDOOHQJHV

In association with

Forbes : Asia - Issue August 2022

Articles inside

America’s Richest Self-Made Women

Charging Ahead

From the Ground Up

Hypergrowth Hero

Green Revolution

Cash Killer

Older and Wiser

Good Medicine

Tech Connector