At 92, Joan Payden Is Among America’s Richest Self-Made Women. Her Net Worth Is…

Despite her success, Payden remains humble and dedicated to philanthropy.

Ninety-two-year-old Joan Payden, with an estimated net worth of $700 million, is among America’s richest self-made women, according to Forbes. Born in Derby, Connecticut in 1931, Payden spent her teenage years in Indonesia. 

After returning to the US, Ms Payden pursued a dual degree in maths and physics at Trinity College, graduating in 1953, which was an unusual achievement for women at that time.

She was one of the few women in engineering in the 1950s at a New Jersey-based company building oil refineries. However, she was laid off, which turned out to be a turning point in her career. 

Following that, Payden pursued a career in finance. She later joined Merrill Lynch, an investment management company. “I was hired at a 25% discount because I didn’t know the difference between a bond and stock,” she admitted to the Los Angeles Times in 1999.

Gradually, Payden’s talents caught the attention of Scudder, Stevens & Clark, an investment counselling firm, where she became the first woman partner – a milestone that set her on a path to founding her own firm.

In 1983, at 52, Ms Payden co-founded Payden & Rygel with colleague Sandra Rygel, which focused on fixed income and global markets. “There are always worries. When I set up the company, I worried I wouldn’t get clients. But that was no problem,” she told the Los Angeles Times at that time.

Now, in over four decades, the firm has grown into one of the country’s largest private money managers, with $162 billion in assets under management. 

Despite her success, Payden remains humble and dedicated to philanthropy. She has donated millions to causes ranging from animal welfare to education, leaving a lasting impact on institutions like Trinity College and universities in Los Angeles.