The Richest Women in History Are Being Ignored

The global economy is undergoing a quiet revolution: women are becoming the dominant financial decision-makers.

But even as trillions flow into our hands, the systems surrounding us continue to behave as if nothing has changed.

Money Has Moved, But The Mindset Hasn’t.

Not long ago, I spoke with one of our members - sadly, a newly widowed woman named Elise.

She had just inherited a modest fortune: a stock portfolio, some properties, and a well-funded retirement account.

Her husband had always "handled the money,” as many husbands do, and his financial advisor had been on speed dial for decades.

But after the funeral? Crickets.

No check-in. No explanation. No transition plan.

Just silence.

When she called the advisor herself, he sounded surprised.

“Oh, you want to talk investments?” he said, as though she’d just asked to see the blueprints of a nuclear submarine.

Elise - a PhD in history, fluent in four languages - wasn't just insulted. She was furious.

And the truth is, I hear stories like this every day from our community. Women with both goals and brains being treated like financial footnotes.

It’s outdated.

It’s insulting.

And, frankly, it’s costing women, and the world, billions.

Women's Wealth: The $20 Trillion Elephant in the Room

This week, a powerful new report from McKinsey titled, “The New Face of Wealth: The Rise of the Female Investor” revealed that women now control more wealth than ever before in human history.

We're talking trillions - plural. In the U.S. alone, women are expected to assume control of an additional $16 trillion by 2030. In Europe, it’s another $4.7 trillion.

Together, that’s $20.7 trillion in newly female-controlled wealth in just a few years.

That number is so big, it almost stops feeling real - until we compare it to the GDP (gross domestic product) of entire countries.

For the sake of comparison, here’s what $20.7 trillion looks like next to the GDP of the world’s largest economies (2023 estimates):

So just to underline this:

Women’s expected new wealth by 2030 would make them the world’s second largest economy - right between the U.S. and China.

That means women are not a “niche market” - yet this is precisely the feedback we've repeatedly encountered in investor meetings.

When pitching Female Invest, we've sat across from venture capitalists (professional investors who fund startups) who've called our female-focused approach "too narrow" and suggested we expand to include men to access the "most lucrative market."

One investor explicitly told us that women-focused financial services were "trendy but hyper niche," despite us presenting the same economic projections you're reading now.

These weren't isolated incidents.

In our fundraising journey, we've encountered so many investors who couldn't see past their own biases to recognize the massive opportunity right in front of them.

These conversations weren’t just personally frustrating; they revealed how deeply the financial industry misunderstands half the world's population.

To spell it out: women are a global economic superpower in the making.

The Quiet Financial Revolution (You Likely Didn’t Hear About)

You won’t read about it in most headlines, but the financial power of women is transforming the global economy in real time.

It’s been called a “money-in-motion moment” - a confluence of social, economic, cultural, and demographic trends putting more wealth into female hands than ever before.

Let’s break that down:

• Social shifts: Fewer women are getting married, and when they do, they’re waiting longer. Divorce remains common. These changes mean more women have full financial autonomy - often earlier in life.
• Economic shifts: Women are now outpacing men in educational attainment and taking up a growing share of high-paying jobs. That translates to more women earning, saving, and investing their own money.
• Demographic shifts: Women live longer on average 8 years longer and often marry older men, whose wealth they eventually inherit. (The sad reality of that is that 80% of women will die alone). The result of all this? A rapidly rising number of affluent older women.
• Cultural shifts: Perhaps most exciting of all, women are now much more confident in their ability to manage money. In Europe, financial confidence among women surged from 45% in 2018 to 67% in 2023. Among millennials, that increase was a jaw-dropping 32 percentage points.

I can’t help but wonder if Female Invest - as a community - has played even a tiny part in that shift.

Since we started hosting free webinars back in 2021, teaching women all over the world how to take their first steps into investing, more than 750,000 women have signed up.

That number honestly gives me goosebumps.

It felt so massive when I saw it that I had to double-check it before putting it in writing.

But it’s real. And it speaks to something powerful: that this movement - is being led by all of us.

By women who are showing up for themselves, for each other, and for future generations. Taking matters into their own hands, one first investment at a time.

So, What’s Going Wrong?

You’d think the financial industry would be rolling out the red carpet. Right?

Think again.

After all, women are gaining wealth, confidence, and control like never before.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: most women outside this community are still not actively managing their money.

Despite the rise in financial autonomy, trillions of dollars are sitting idle in checking accounts or low-yield savings: untapped, unmanaged, and underutilised.

It’s not because women aren’t capable.

It’s because the industry has failed to speak to them, serve them, or even see them properly.

Women like Elise are being left behind.

That’s a massive, heartbreaking missed opportunity - not just for the women themselves, but for their families, their communities, and society as a whole.

Imagine what could be achieved if that wealth was invested intentionally - creating security, funding innovation, closing gender gaps, and building futures.

Three Ways the Financial Industry Is Failing Women

So while we’re celebrating the progress we’ve made together in this community, we also have to face the reality that millions of women are still falling behind.

And that’s exactly why we need this movement to grow.

Why is this happening, you might ask?

The McKinsey report highlights three key failures - and sadly, they don’t come as any surprise to us:

1. The industry lacks diversity. Women make up just 23% of advisors in the U.S., and even less in Europe. When women inherit wealth - through divorce, widowhood, or success - they often switch advisors. But if the advisory team doesn’t reflect or understand them, they have nowhere to go.‍
2. Men are still seen as the default client. As was the case with Elise, advisors often direct conversations toward their male partners, assuming they “own” the financial decisions. When those men disappear, through death or divorce, advisors often fall off the grid.
3. ‍Younger women aren’t being engaged. Most women aren’t aware that they could easily learn to manage their money themselves through tools like this app. As a result, they often don’t get started until much later in life - missing out on years, even decades, of wealth-building potential simply because no one thought to include them.

So We Took It to the Top

Sadly, none of this surprises us.

Every day, we speak with women - women like Elise - who feel like the financial world simply wasn’t built for them.

And to a large extent, that’s what motivated us to start Female Invest in the first place.

We were lucky to learn early on that investing mattered, but like so many others, we didn’t know where to begin and we certainly didn’t feel welcomed in the financial industry.

We agree 100% with the findings of the McKinsey report.

In fact, we spend a significant amount of time lobbying for the financial industry to take women seriously and to reflect that in the teams building products for us.

While the report focuses primarily on financial advisors, the reality is this: the higher you look in most banks and institutions, the fewer women you’ll find.

That’s why my co-founder Anna and I were honoured to speak at the European Parliament in Brussels a few months back, representing this community and calling for change.

Because stories like Elise’s shouldn’t be the norm - they should be a wake-up call.

You can watch Anna’s full speech on YouTube, but her closing remarks seem very fitting for this story:

“It always seems crazy until it’s done. It was crazy when women got the right to vote…It was crazy when women for the right to initiate divorce, to get the children, to enter the paid working force…

So many things that were once considered crazy and had so much resistance are now accepted as common sense.”

‍What Happens When Women Don’t Invest?

Let’s imagine the alternative.

Let’s imagine a woman - smart, capable, educated - who earns well but never feels confident enough to invest.

Maybe she’s been told it’s “too risky.”

Maybe she’s never seen herself reflected in the industry.

Maybe she assumes someone else will do it for her.

So she parks her money in a checking account.

Inflation quietly eats it alive.

Retirement arrives later than she hoped.

Healthcare becomes a looming threat. Her wealth remains stagnant while others race ahead.

She loses. Her family loses. Society loses.

Because when women don’t invest, they don’t just miss out on money.

They miss out on power. Influence. Independence.

They lose the chance to shape their futures - and the futures of their children, their communities, and the economy at large.

And when trillions of dollars sit idle, it doesn’t just affect individual women.

It drains the global economy.

It stifles innovation.

It exacerbates inequality.

It's the silent tax of a system built for someone else.

A Better Future (Already in Motion)

Here’s the good news: the revolution is already happening. You are the proof.

You’re reading this article on an app designed for women - by women - who believe that financial education isn’t a luxury.

It’s a human right.

You’ve taken the first step (or the fiftieth).

You’ve joined a global sisterhood of investors, learners, and trailblazers who are not only managing their wealth, they’re changing the world.

So yes, the industry still has catching up to do. But you're not waiting. And neither are we.

At Female Invest, we spend every day challenging outdated norms, pushing for policy change, and creating content that makes money feel less intimidating and mysterious.

We believe every woman deserves to feel powerful in a conversation about money.

And we’re not stopping until that’s the norm.

The Wealth Revolution Won't Wait for Permission

Here’s what I want you to remember:

You are not the exception.

You are the future of wealth.

So, dear members. Ask questions. Demand more. Invest your money. And never apologise for being ambitious, curious, or determined to secure your financial future.

Because when more women invest, everyone wins.

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Source:
McKinsey & Company: The new face of wealth: The rise of the female investor, May 2025