Yelena Baturina Makes the Forbes List of the World's Billionaires for 11th Consecutive Year as Russia's Richest Woman
Of the 1,810 billionaires on this year's Forbes The World's Billionaires list, only 190 are women. While most of these women have inherited their wealth from family, Ms Baturina is one of only 33 female billionaires who have built their fortune from scratch, despite the gender discrimination that often prevails in the global business world.
She has been the richest Russian woman on the Forbes list for 11 consecutive years and the only Russian woman on the list as a whole. She is also one of only two self-made female billionaires in the construction section of the list.
Yelena Baturina moved her business headquarters to Europe in 2011, after selling her main Russian asset, the construction company Inteco. Since that time, she has been engaged in a number of successful commercial endeavours. At present her assets include a network of hotels (Ireland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Russia), renewable energy interests (Italy), and a membrane construction enterprise (Germany). In addition, she has invested in a number of real estate investment funds focused on residential and commercial construction and development in the UK and US.
In late 2015, Yelena Baturina launched a new development business in New York with an initial investment of 10 million USD. The first set of commercial buildings she acquired is located in central Brooklyn, the third largest business centre of the city after Lower and Midtown Manhattan. The company is considering transferring the land they are located on to a category suitable for residential construction, so that a large-scale development project can be realised.
Yelena Baturina is active in philanthropy. In 2015 due to her public activity she was selected an international ambassador for the WE-Women social initiative. As an ambassador Yelena Baturina spoke of the need of state and public support for women balancing family and professional responsibilities, and also of the fact that both the realms must be treated equally by society, regardless of the system of values and current trends, political or economic regime.
In the recent years, Ms Baturina has been realizing most of her philanthropic initiatives through the BE OPEN Foundation she set up in 2011. It is a cultural and social initiative which aims to become a bridge between the great minds of our time - philosophers, sociologists, designers, architects, artists, publishers, writers, businessmen and opinion leaders - and the promising new minds of the next generation through a system of conferences, competitions, exhibitions, master classes and art events. Among other things, BE OPEN is currently working in close partnership with the Mayor's Fund for London, supporting a London youth employment programme for the creative industries.
