Gina Rinehart

Georgina Hope "Gina" Rinehart is an Australian mining magnate and heiress. Rinehart is the Executive Chairman of Hancock Prospecting, a privately-owned mineral exploration and extraction company founded by her father, Lang Hancock.

Rinehart was born in Perth, Western Australia, and spent her early years in the Pilbara region. She boarded at St Hilda's Anglican School for Girls and then briefly studied at the University of Sydney, dropping out to work with her father at Hancock Prospecting. She was Lang Hancock's only child, and when he died in 1992 – leaving a bankrupt estate – she succeeded him as executive chairman. She turned a company with severe financial difficulties into the largest private company in Australia and one of the largest mining houses in the world.

Rinehart is Australia’s richest person. Her wealth reached around A$29 billion in 2012, at which point she overtook Christy Walton as the world's richest woman and was included on the Forbes list of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women. Rinehart's net worth dropped significantly over the following few years due to a slowdown in the Australian mining sector. However, her wealth was rebuilt again during 2020 due to increased demand for Australian iron ore, so that by May 2021, her net worth was estimated in excess of A$30 billion. Forbes considered Rinehart one of the world's ten richest women. Rinehart was Australia's wealthiest person from 2011 to 2015, according to both Forbes and The Australian Financial Review; and again in 2020 and 2021, according to The Australian Business Review and The Australian Financial Review. In a May 2021 Guardian Australia investigation, it was reported that Rinehart was the single largest landholder in Australia, at over 9.2 e6ha, just over 1% of Australia's total landmass.