The eight women on the BRW Young Rich List: Where are the rest?

Melanie Perkins Canva

Canva co-founder Melanie Perkins

I always feel optimistic picking up BRW’s Young Rich List at this time of year. If there’s one kind of rich list where we should start to see more women featured, it should be here.

Especially at a time when female entrepreneurship is being so heavily promoted, and when the market’s starting to look saturated with career coaches, networking and support groups designed to assist women in business.

Read more: Why the world is a small place for BRW’s 22 Young Rich List debutantes

But once again, women are hard to find on the list that features the 100 wealthiest Australians under 41. There are just eight women on the list this year, the same as in 2015.

No women feature in the top 10. No women feature individually in the top 30, where Erica Baxter makes the list with an estimated 2016 worth of $79 million.

Still, there’s optimism in some of the new debuts this year, including Envato co-founder Cyan Ta’eed, who with her husband Collis takes the 12th and 13th spot, with an estimated $184 million. Also debuting on the list this year is Amanda Hayward in the 94th position. She’s the owner and chief executive of the Writer’s Coffee Shop, the publisher of the ‘Fifty Shades’ series.

Other entrepreneurs featured include Melanie Perkins, who shares the 20th and 21st spot with her Canva co-founder and a 2016 worth of $124 million, and fitness entrepreneur Kayla Itsines, who sits in the 51st and 52nd spot with partner Tobi Pearce. The Adelaide pair have built a global business worth more than $46 million, merging social media and fitness as founders of the Bikini Body Training Company. The 25-year-old Itsines has 5.6 million Instagram followers, with more than 2 million people posting “before” and “after” shots to her platform.

So how do you get rich in your twenties and thirties? Well those making significant fortunes appear to be doing so in tech and so it pays, very well, to build a major, industry-changing tech platform. Otherwise get in on the bikini business — from the fitness or retail perspective — and/or find some erotic fiction to publish and promote.

Alternatively, come up with something new, unique and completely you. Just make it scalable.

The women featured on the 2016 BRW Young Rich List include:

  1. Cyan Ta’eed in the 12/13 position, as co-founder of technology company Envato, and with a 2016 worth of 184 million
  2. Melanie Perkins in the 20/21 position, as co-founder of technology company Canva, and with a 2016 worth of 124 million
  3. Erica Backer, in the 30th position, featured in ‘entertainment’, with a 2016 worth of $79 million
  4. Kayla Itsines, in the 51/52 position, as co-founder of major fitness empire the Bikini Body Training Company, and with a 2016 worth of $46 million
  5. Erin Deering, in the 70th position, as co-founder of online bikini company Triang, and with a 2016 worth of $38 million
  6. Sia Furler, in the 79th position, Grammy-award winning singer-songwriter, with a 2016 worth of $32 million
  7. Miranda Kerr, in the 81st position, model and founder of skincare range, with a 2016 worth of $32 million
  8. Amanda Hayward, in the 94th position, owner and chief executive of the Writer’s Coffee Shop, publisher of the ‘Fifty Shades’ series, with a 2016 worth of $23 million

This article was first published by Women’s Agenda.

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