South Africa’s richest woman

Wendy Appelbaum is a successful businesswoman, philanthropist, and one of the richest women in Africa, with an estimated net worth of R4.79 billion.

Described as tough, blunt, and charitable, Appelbaum is said to be very similar to her father, Sir Donald Gordon, who passed down his entrepreneurial spirit and business acumen to her.

Born in 1961, Wendy Donna Appelbaum grew up in Johannesburg with her two brothers, Richard and Graeme.

As the daughter of South African business mogul Sir Donald Gordon, the founder of Liberty Group, she was raised in an influential family. 

However, her father’s humble beginnings as the son of immigrant parents informed the family’s values and embedded philanthropy in their lives.

Much of her business acumen was passed down by her father,  who taught her how to identify opportunity and maximise its benefit.

According to Appelbaum, every dinner table conversation in the Gordon family home was like being at Harvard Business School: “It was like living in an MBA class.” 

She said that while her father certainly taught her a lot about business, growing up as a girl in the 1970s meant that there wasn’t much expectation for her to do anything. 

“It was my choice to do something. So, I have always worked and I have always been busy.” 

She wanted to become a doctor, but when she wasn’t accepted into medical school, she studied psychology at the University of the Witwatersrand instead, with economics as one of her subjects.

She later joined her father at the Liberty Group, where she was appointed as a director at Liberty Investors in the early 1990s.

Even though she had just made her foray into the business world, she wasn’t afraid to make her voice heard, even raising questions in her very first Liberty board meeting. 

Gordon kept a straight face but took his daughter aside as soon as the meeting ended, firmly instructing her never to question him in his boardroom again. 

“I said: ‘What do you think I’m doing here? If you want a rubber stamp, go to the post office. I’m not here to rubber stamp everything’. Nobody else would take him on. I was always the one who had to do it.”

In the 1990s, soon after the end of Apartheid, she co-founded the Women’s Investment Portfolio Holdings (Wiphold), a South African woman-controlled company raising capital for major investments in large corporations.

“We were 11 women on the board. The timing was perfect. BEE was becoming the sexy thing of the day. And when you coupled that with women… the deal flow was extraordinary,” Appelbaum said.

In just four years, Wiphold turned an initial $60,000 (R1.1 million today) investment into a $120 million (R2.21 billion) debt-free enterprise. 

The management team tutored women in townships and rural areas in basic finance and business skills and helped them form groups to buy shares. 

“We empowered women that were technically completely disadvantaged, really empowered them to understand how to invest and take a little bit of money and make it a lot,” she said.

“There was an incredible amount of energy in that boardroom. I’ve never been in a boardroom that good ever since.”

When Wiphold was listed, it made history as the first female-controlled company on the JSE.

Appelbaum left soon after, selling her shares so previously disadvantaged women could fill her space. 

Appelbaum had always dreamed of owning a farm, and in 2003, she and her husband, Hylton Appelbaum, bought the De Morgenzon, a wine estate in the Stellenbosch Winelands. 

Their maiden vintage, a 2005 Chenin Blanc, became the first wine to get five stars in South Africa’s leading Platter’s Wine Guide.

“Once I realised that all this experience I was getting across the board, from financials to marketing to HR, I decided I was going to do it for myself, and that was when we started De Morgenzon,” Appelbaum explained.

To produce a top-quality organic wine, she planted wildflowers between the vines for natural pollination and played Baroque music throughout the vineyard to support plant growth biodynamically. 

Appelbaum also took extreme care in selecting the right winemaker for the estate.

“I had four or five winemakers making wine for me. Not only did I look at the quality of the wine they made, but for a number of years, I interacted with them to see who I would get on best with.”

Although she wasn’t able to become a doctor, her interest in medicine became a lifelong passion, and a large chunk of Appelbaum’s philanthropic investments went toward health.

“Charity was always central to my father’s worldview, and he was convinced of the importance of putting back into the society from which he prospered,” she said. 

She served as a member of the Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre (WDGMC) board, an important facility which trains specialists and sub-specialists. 

She was also instrumental in the establishment of the Fellowship in Gynaecological Oncology, the creation of an outpatient Women’s Health Clinic, and the Fellowship in Geriatric Medicine.

Through brokering beneficial partnerships, Appelbaum significantly advanced the way medical training is conducted in South Africa – an outcome that reflects her passion for improving access to quality healthcare for all, Wits University explained. 

More recently, her interest has shifted towards social impact investing, which has led to significant policy change and benefitted millions of disadvantaged South Africans.

She has repeatedly proven herself as an accomplished businesswoman, with many successful ventures and awards to her name.

This includes being recognised as the Forbes Businesswoman of the Year in 2015 and the Forbes Africa Woman in the same year.

“I’m an absolute perfectionist,” Appelbaum said. “Whatever I decide to do, I will drive myself insane until it’s right.”

Much later in life, she was able to pursue her childhood dream, enrolling in Harvard Medical School to learn about the connection between human rights and healthcare and receiving an honourary Doctor of Science in Medicine degree from Wits University.