Billionaires From the Frozen North
Any annual listing of the world’s richest people invariably conjures up many of the same names from one year to the next.  Yes, Warren Buffet is on there, and so is Bill Gates.  Ho hum.  But the average American-centric observer usually fails to recognize the wealth and entrepreneurial spirit that continues to thrive in our Neighbor to the North - Canada.  That country has its share of wealthy people, and successful people, and successfully wealthy people.  And even though the recent economic downturn has had some negative effects on those Billionaire Balance Sheets - comparing 2009 to 2008, the world’s billionaires shed approximately $2 trillion in asset valuation - none of these people is expected to show up in a bread line anytime soon.  According to Forbes, the magazine nearly everyone reads when it comes to exploring entrepreneurs and their successes, here are the ten richest Canadians for 2009, along with a brief description as to how they got there in the first place.  Unless otherwise noted, all figures are [not ironically] in U.S. dollars.

1. David Thomson and family ($13.0 billion); media conglomerate
Thomson is the grandson of Roy Thomson, who founded Thomson Corp. in 1934.  The company began as a book publisher, and today it continues to be one of the world’s prominent providers of textbooks for higher education.  But the corporation really took off once it got involved in electronic media and information technology, dominating such sectors as healthcare, financial services, law, and science.  The company acquired the Reuters news service in 2007 and is now formally known as Thomson Reuters.

2.

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Women in the Boardroom, and Beyond
Over the past several decades, women have gained a far more prominent position on the American business scene.  Once relegated to roles of subservience, as viewers of the AMC television series “Mad Men” can attest, female corporate executives have continued to assert themselves in boardrooms across the country.  The business magazine Fortune has, for the past twelve years, created an annual listing of the 50 most powerful women in business.  Some of them hold the top spots in their respective companies, while others are well on the way to that position.  The characteristics they share are hardly different from their male counterparts - vision, persistence, and intelligence - but many will privately attest to the fact that reaching this point in their careers took extra effort.  As much as we would like to believe in an egalitarian world of business, there is still an extra thrill when a woman manages to “make it in a man’s world.”  One measure of success - when the list premiered in 1998, only two women of the 50 was a CEO or its equivalent.  This year’s list includes 13 CEOs.

Most Powerful Women in Business
Fortune has selected fifty powerful women for its annual list; here is an in-depth look at the top ten:

1. Indra Nooyi (PepsiCo); Chairman and CEO
This is the fourth year that Nooyi has topped the Fortune list.  She led this food and beverage conglomerate to $43 billion in sales and led the drive to buy out the company’s two largest independent bottlers.  That move alone is expected to save the company close to $300 million a year.

2. Irene Rosenfeld (Kraft Foods); Chairman and CEO
Remaining at the number two spot, Rosenfeld helped increase company revenue 15 percent and saw her company become part of the Dow 30, a highly influential position.

3.

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Personalities and Entrepreneurship
As any business owner knows, it takes a certain type of person to operate a successful business.  But did you know that experts have identified as many as nine different kinds of personalities that apply to entrepreneurship?  By looking at any list of entrepreneurs - business owners who have built successful companies from scratch - you can match at least one of the following traits to each of them.

Nine Types of Entrepreneurs
By knowing which kind of an entrepreneur you are, you will find greater success by knowing what kind of business you should operate.

1. The Developer
Your intention to run your own company involves using it as a means for improving the planet, helping humanity, or simply making life easier for the general populace.  This field runs the gamut from healthcare to creating new personal products (healthier food or a soothing body spray), and it is your belief that morally upstanding companies will reap great rewards for working on worthwhile causes.

2. The Advisor
By offering a high level of customer service in the form of outstanding assistance and advice, no matter what kind of product or service you sell, you will satisfy people’s need and build a great company.  Any business founded by this type of personality invariably ends up as a customer-focused enterprise.

3. The Magnetic Personality
Individuals with immense levels of high energy and charisma have the ability to attract equally committed workers who help them build important businesses.  Although there is a “workaholic” element to this type that can be detrimental if left unchecked, some of the world’s greatest companies have been founded by superstar entrepreneurs.

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Michael Jackson - Icon
Beginning with his recent death at age 50, there has been enough Michael Jackson news out there to satisfy even the hardest core fan.  Without question he enjoyed an iconic presence in the world of popular music, stretching back to at least the 1980s.  More than one music expert has declared him to be Michael Jackson, King of Pop.  The album, “Thriller,” has sold more copies than nearly any other recording, and there can be no argument that the concept of the music video - ushering in what became MTV culture - was the perfect medium to show off all of Jackson’s talents.  But few people realize that he was as much an entrepreneur as he was an entertainer.

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Ingvar Kamprad is a little known name amongst the general public today, largely because he keeps himself to himself and is a very private individual. However, his achievements are simply amazing given his background. In fact, he is the owner of the single biggest furniture chain in the world at the moment and has made billions as a result. Ingvar Kamprad’s entrepreneurial ventures are simply amazing and thus can provide inspiration for budding entrepreneurs everywhere.

The Young Kamprad

Today, Ingvar Kamprad is worth $31 billion and was at number seven in the Forbes list of the richest men in the world as of March 2008. He is easily the richest man in Europe at the moment. However, his wealth was not always as healthy. The entrepreneur was born on March 30, 1926 in Sweden. He was born on a farm in the village of Agunnaryd in the province of Smaland. It was hardly a wealthy village but was instead a rural community that specialised in farming. Kamprad was well aware of its limitations and saw a business opportunity.

Before Ingvar Kamprad was in his teenage years, he was supplying the community with everything it needed at a profit. He would obtain goods on a regular trip to Stockholm and then sell them at a price to the neighbours. He began his business with matches and then moved onto products like Christmas decorations, fish, pens and seeds. They were all commodities that people needed but could not get a hold of. As such, he learned how to buy and sell for profit very quickly. He was a successful entrepreneur before he left school and set about building his empire at the tender age of 17.

IKEA

The entrepreneur raised the capital to begin his own business from his father, who wished to reward him for his excellent results at school.

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In this day and age, there are a handful of businessmen and entrepreneurs that are well known as a result of their involvement with a high profile company. However, the majority of them do not hold a candle to the early American businessmen that created a model for them to follow. The 19th Century businessmen were incredibly successful and should be used as basic examples of exactly what can be done with a little drive and intelligence. Andrew Carnegie was one such example. The entrepreneur was undoubtedly one of the most successful businessmen of his time to the point where he would be the richest man in the world today were his fortune to be translated into modern values.

Early Life

Very little is known about Andrew Carnegie’s early life purely and simply because he was born in Scotland and then moved to the United States with his parents a few years after his birth. He was born on November 25, 1835. His family was poor and Carnegie began to work at an early age. He only developed his intellect via reading the books that Colonel James Anderson, a local military hero, owned. Anderson had opened his personal library up to uneducated boys to help them better themselves. Carnegie would always be proud that he was a self-made man as he moved up through the ranks of the business world. This is evident in the fact that he worked as a bobbin boy in a cotton mill from the age of 13. This simply typifies the fact that Carnegie worked incredibly hard.

Andrew Carnegie secured a job at the Ohio Telegraph Company in Pittsburgh in 1951 and set about teaching himself the telegraph signals that were sent and received. As such, he was able to move up the ranks of the business very quickly and could afford to begin investing his money by the age of 18. The entrepreneur mainly invested in railroad companies and went about amassing a fortune.

The Civil War And Beyond

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When it comes to the world of fashion, there are very few designers and icons that are as or more prolific than Ralph Lauren. The entrepreneur has been at the very heart of the fashion industry for some years now and his creations are just as in demand as they ever were. As such, he is undoubtedly one of the American fashion designers that every budding designer aspires to be. Ralph Lauren displayed an amazing awareness of fashion from a young age and had a real talent, so he is a shining example of what an individual can do.

The Young Designer

Born Ralph Rueben Lifshitz in The Bronx, New York on October 14, 1939, the young designer most definitely did not have the easiest of childhoods. As the son of a Belarus immigrant who painted housings for a living, the entrepreneur knew what it was to be poor. In fact, it is a safe assumption that the family struggled. This taught Lauren the value of money because it meant that he had to work for everything he wanted. On the whole, that was fashion. He would take any jobs that he could to earn a few dollars, which would ultimately then be spent on suits and other fashion items that made him appear to be more financially sound than he actually was.

Ralph Lauren actually embarked upon his fashion journey when he was at the Martha Stern Talmudical Academy. Before he was 16 years old, he was selling ties and other items that he had actually designed to his classmates. If this did not show his desire to make enough money to live comfortably and get out of the area he grew up in then the comment that the entrepreneur wrote in his yearbook most definitely did. Lauren stated that he wanted to be a millionaire.

From The Army To Fashion

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Very few people outside of the business world have heard of an incredibly savvy entrepreneur called Akio Morita. Although he died on October 3, 1999, he shaped the way that the electronics industry was to operate in the years to come and he has left a legacy that will be difficult to emulate. The entrepreneur may not be well known but the brand that Akio Morita created is the largest electronics brand in the world - Sony. Akio Morita was an unwitting entrepreneur in that he did not aspire to be one but just demonstrates that money can be made from a simple idea.

Morita As A Boy

Akio Morita was born in Tokoname, Aichi in Japan on January 26, 1921. His family was an old and respected one that had manufactured soy sauce, sake and miso since 1665. As it had always been a family business, it was expected that the entrepreneur would take over and thus he spent a lot of time learning the trade when he was younger. However, although Akio Morita had a head for business, he did not have a head for his family’s business. He chose to study physics and mathematics at Osaka Imperial University, from where he graduated in 1944. Upon graduating, he enlisted in the navy and served during the remainder of World War II. This may not have sounded appealing but he did meet his business partner, Masaru Ibuka, during that period.

The Beautiful Friendship

Following the close of the war, the entrepreneur teamed up with Ibuka to create a company called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation) in 1946. Morita managed to persuade his family to invest and began to create various items that would revolutionize the electronics and communications industries in the years to come.

The first big success for Morita and the company was the magnetic recording tape.

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