Joan Payden’s net worth is roughly around USD 700 million. She is also a “newcomer” on the 2024 list of America’s Richest Self-Made Women recently published by Forbes.
Joan Payden, aged 92, is one of the richest self-made women in the United States. She is the head and founder of Payden & Rygel, a large money management company in Los Angeles established in 1983. Today, the company managing over USD 161 billion in assets and having almost 240 employees in several offices. Payden’s path to the top started with her education in mathematics and physics at Trinity College, Washington DC, in the 1950s, she was one of the few females to be an engineer at a company that constructed oil refineries in New Jersey.
However, she got fired from the job after working for three years due to retrenchment. Thus, Payden decided to change her career, and she ventured into the financial market. She got a job as a junior associate in Merrill Lynch right from the initial level with a lower salary because she did not know that bond was different from stock. A few years later, she relocated to Los Angeles to join the premier money management firm, Scudder, Stevens & Clark. Finally, after several tries, she made history as the first female partner of the firm; although, she once lost a promotion because she was unable to attend a male-only golf outing.
This was something that Payden did not want to have happen to her, for her gender to determine her career. “I am either a good financial advisor or not. I am not ‘a good woman financial advisor,’” she once said.
THE change
By 1983 Payden felt ready for a change and decided to sell the company. Sandra Rygel resigned from her post and Payden utilized her 401(k) to establish Payden & Rygel with Rygel. She had some doubts about how she would get clients but she soon proved to herself that it will not be a problem at all.
Today, her firm is one of the largest private money management companies in the U. S. The firm manages more than USD 161 billion of assets and almost 240 people and offices in different states, according to the data provided on the site of the firm.
Joan Payden’s net worth is roughly around USD 700 million. She is also a “newcomer” on the 2024 list of America’s Richest Self-Made Women recently published by Forbes. Her advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is to take the plunge despite fears: “When you jump in the lake, you can’t think about drowning,” she said, further noting that the risk of inaction was even higher than the risk that was presented by the action.