International Women's Day: Meet the 10 richest women

7. Jacqueline Mars

Gary He/AP/File
In this file photo released by Mars, a 10-foot statue of the latest M&M's character, Ms. Brown, is unveiled at the M&M'S World Store in New York. Jacqueline Mars, an owner of the Mars candy company that makes M&M's, is the seventh-richest woman in the world.

Net worth: $13.8 billion

Wealth source: Candy

Overall Forbes rank: #52

Ms. Mars owns the largest candy company in the world, Mars, along with her two brothers. The company acquired Wrigley’s for $23 billion in 2008. The Mars company is responsible for many of the world’s most popular candies, including Milky Way, M&M's, 3 Musketeers, Twix, Skittles, and Snickers. Mars lives in The Plains, Va., and is divorced with three children. She has been on the Forbes billionaire list every year since its creation in 1987.

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About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

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If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

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We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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