Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken


Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken is a Dutch-British billionaire businesswoman, and the owner of a 25% controlling interest in the world's second-largest brewer, Heineken International. She is the richest person in the Netherlands, with a net worth of $16.3 billion as of October 2019, according to the Forbes billionaires list.

Early life

Charlene Heineken was born on 30 June 1954, the daughter of Freddy Heineken, a Dutch industrialist, and Lucille Cummins, an American from a Kentucky family of bourbon whiskey distillers. She was educated at Rijnlands Lyceum Wassenaar, followed by a law degree from Leiden University.

Career

She owns a 25% controlling stake in Dutch brewer Heineken, of which she is also an executive director.
The biannual Heineken Prize for cognitive science is named after her.

Personal life

She is married to Michel de Carvalho, a financier and director of Citigroup, whom she met on a ski holiday in St. Moritz, Switzerland. He is a member of the supervisory board of Heineken NV. They reside in London with their five children.
Upon the death of her father in 2002, she inherited about £3 billion, making her the wealthiest person with Dutch citizenship. In 2019, the Sunday Times Rich List ranking of the wealthiest people in the UK named her the wealthiest woman and the 7th overall, with an estimated fortune of £12 billion.