This 92-year-old just became one of US' richest self-made women. Joan Payden is worth $700 million

Joan Payden was 52 when she quit her job and emptied her company-sponsored retirement account and convinced her colleague Sandra Rygel to start a money management firm together. That was in 1983, four decades since, Payden continues to manage money and has even become one of the richest (and oldest) self-made women in the US.

The 92-year-old is the CEO of the Los Angeles-based firm Payden & Rygel which  manages more than $161 billion in assets and nearly 240 employees across multiple offices, according to its website.

As a majority owner, Payden’s assets have grown with the firm and currently, she boasts an estimated net worth of roughly $700 million. She is also a “newcomer” on the 2024 list of America’s Richest Self-Made Women recently published by Forbes.

Payden’s path to success, however, spanned decades. According to a report by the publication, she studied math and physics at Trinity College in Washington and became one of just a handful of women engineers at a New Jersey-based company building oil refineries in the 1950s but was laid off after three years.