Australia’s 75 richest women now control more than $151b

While a few of their assets were in Cannon-Brooke’s name alone, such as Queensland’s Dunk Island Resort, it seems unlikely any divorce proceedings would not also see her win at least some of her husband’s Atlassian shares, given they constitute the vast bulk of the pair’s fortune. It is understood, however, that she would not receive the voting rights attached to the shares.

Kim Jackson, the wife of Atlassian’s other co-founder, Scott Farquhar, also made her debut on the Rich Women list this year.

This has nothing to do with separation – the two are very much together by all accounts – but it recognises Ms Jackson’s role as co-founder of Skip Capital, the family office that reinvests the proceeds of Mr Farquhar’s ongoing sales of Atlassian shares.

As well as building up a venture capital portfolio, Ms Jackson’s experience as a former investment banker no doubt helped Skip amass a 19.9 per cent stake in ASX-listed Genex Power as part of a takeover attempt and will be useful as it teams up with private equity fund KKR in a bid for Queensland Airport, according to Street Talk.

Canva co-founder Melanie Perkins comes in fifth on this year’s list with a net worth of $6.8 billion – in other words, half of the fortune she has built with husband Cliff Obrecht.

Canva is currently conducting a blockbuster $US1.5 billion secondary share sale, which values the business at $US26 billion – a price that has early investors believing new buyers are getting a good deal.

Perkins, who has always been uncomfortable with her billionaire status, plans to donate most of her wealth to charitable causes via the Canva Foundation, alongside her husband and co-founder Cliff Obrecht.

“We have a two-step plan at Canva. Step one is to build one of the world’s most valuable companies, which we continue making progress towards, and importantly, step two is to use that value to do the most good we can,” she says.

“To us, a truly ‘crazy big goal’ is one that feels big and impossible … Uplifting people from extreme poverty is certainly one such goal.

“We don’t believe we should be living on this planet where people don’t have their most basic human needs being met – like food, clean water, basic healthcare, shelter and security. It’s beyond atrocious that it’s the case today. We would love to see that change in our lives and will certainly spend our lifetime working towards that goal.”

Pop star Kylie Minogue rounds out this year’s Rich Women List, tied in last place with the Baker’s Delight mother-daughter duo Lesley and Elise Gillespie, with a net worth of $130 million. Her wealth increased by $30 million in the last year, thanks to the success of her Grammy-award winning single Padam Padam, and her Las Vegas residency.

‘Stop apologising’ for asking for more

The biggest movers on this year’s Rich Women List were sisters Nicole and Simone Zimmermann, following the sale last August of 70 per cent of their eponymous fashion label to US private equity giant Advent International. The deal valued Zimmermann at up to $1.75 billion. The sisters are now worth an estimated $361 million each, catapulting them up 16 places on this year’s list.

The biggest fall was suffered by Megan Wynne, founder of employment services group APM, who dropped nine places to 44th. The share price capitulation of APM was the catalyst for Wynne’s fall, with the company suffering from lower earnings due to the low unemployment rate and the expectation of lower fees from an overhaul National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Despite a recent takeover bid which drove a 108 per cent rebound in APM’s share price this month, it remains down almost 30 per cent on this time last year. A relatively moribund market for public listings, buyouts and venture capital raisings over the past 12 months has not produced many new faces on the Rich Women List this year.

Just missing the $130 million cut-off were the likes of Zoe Foster-Blake, who bought back shares in her beauty business Go-To when BWX collapsed for a fraction of their estimated value, giving her a majority stake once again. Likewise, Crown Point Pastoral co-owner Colleen Costello, one of the largest landowners in the country, alongside her husband Donny Costello, just fell short of the top 75.

Former Icon Group owner Cathie Reid, who placed 54th on this year’s list with an estimated net worth of $308 million, is one of the few women on the list who are comfortable talking about wealth – something she hopes will change.

“It’s about talking about money in general. I love that there are now groups of women having investor clubs, rather than book clubs. It’s nothing against books, but how much more valuable is it to be sitting around over a glass of wine and talking about your share portfolios,” she says. “Things like that are fantastic ways of getting comfortable talking about money, and that then translates into salary negotiations.”

Acknowledging that she was making a broad generalisation, Ms Reid says in her experience of running her cancer care company, men were far more comfortable in saying what they were worth in salary negotiations.

She wants this to change. “If you go in apologising for why you believe you’re worth more, that sets the tone for the way the request is heard,” she says.

“If you come in more confidently, stating your case about what you’re worth and why, it doesn’t necessarily mean the person will grant you what you want, but you’re heard in a different way.”

Thanks to the proliferation of online tools to help people invest in shares, she said it was easier than ever for women to start building investment portfolios. “You don’t need a lot of money to get started.”

While a passionate supporter of women in business, Ms Reid took issue with the recent Workplace Gender Equality Agency gender pay gap figures, believing they painted an inaccurate picture of pay discrimination.

“Transparency that creates discussion and dialogue is great ... but transparency has to come with accuracy to it,” she says. “It isn’t a situation where there’s a bloke and a woman doing the same job and I’ll pay the bloke 20 per cent more.”

‘Used to being the only woman in the room’

Of the 75 females on the Rich Women list, 38 are considered to be self-made, including Trawalla Group’s Carol Schwartz, who ranks 59th with an estimated net worth of $266 million.

Schwartz says she was used to being the only woman in the room when she began her career and that, although the business landscape had changed materially, there was still progress on gender equity to be made.

“When I was a baby lawyer in the late ’70s, women were being channelled into non-commercial areas of law, either family law or litigation, and you didn’t find many women in commercial law,” she says.

“My professional life led me into property ... mainly in shopping centres. I would have been in my early 30s and I would go into meetings and continually be the only woman.

“Things have definitely changed, but not enough yet. You still don’t have enough women in very senior roles.”

In the next 10 years, Ms Schwartz hopes family dynamics and societal norms will have evolved enough for this to change.

“Stereotypes that have been carried forward around who needs flexibility in their work, who contributes more in the home environment, who plays major roles in families, all have to change,” she says.

Sarina Russo’s employment, training and education company, Sarina Russo Group, has managed to maintain revenue of more than $100 million, despite the country’s low unemployment rate, which contributed to fellow Rich Lister Megan Wynne’s ASX-listed company APM taking a significant valuation hit.

Coupled with her extensive property holdings spanning NSW, Queensland and Victoria, Ms Russo ranked 59th on this year’s Rich Women list, with a net worth of $271 million.

She purchased her first property for $40,000 and still owns it today. She believes it is now worth around $1.3 million. Likewise, her first high-rise building, 82 Ann Street, Brisbane, she bought for less than the cost of a single apartment today.

“I’ve always loved real estate. My father, when I was a child, used to buy real estate and I used to be a landlord on his behalf because he couldn’t speak English,” she said. ”Nothing is greater than driving past a building [you own].”

Ms Russo has only sold a property once, and this sale was something she now regrets.

As a child, despite doing her father’s tax returns from the age of 10, she was told she would fail Year 12. Self-belief, she said, has been her greatest driver.

“I was told I was a failure, but I knew in my heart that was only their opinion.”

Valuations for the list were ruled off at the beginning of March and are based on the Rich List team’s best assumptions from publicly available information.