Isabel dos Santos

Isabel José dos Santos, is an entrepreneur and investor. She was named by FORBES magazine as Africa’s first female billionaire with a net worth estimated USD $3.7 billion (March 2014). She was also named one of Africa's 40 Richest people after having increased her stake in Portugal's ZON Multimedia, a cable TV and Internet company, to 28.8% in 2012. That stake was worth a recent $385 million according to the magazine.

The are questions about how Ms. Santos accummilated her wealth during her fathers reign over Angola from 1979 to 2017. The Angolan court froze the personal bank accounts of Ms. dos Santos in December 2019.

She also owns 19.5% in Banco BPI one of Portugal’s largest publicly traded banks and is a board member and own a 25% stake, worth a conservative $160 million in Banco BIC Português, which recently acquired Banco Portugues de Negocios, a nationalized bank.

Ms. dos Santos controls her investments through two companies, Santoro Finance, based in Lisbon, Portugal and Unitel International Holdings BV, based in the Netherlands.

Ms. dos Santos started her business career in 1997, at age 24, opening a restaurant in Luanda, called the Miami Beach.

In the early 1990's she was employed by Urbana 2000, a subsidiary of Angola's Jembas Group, as an engineer and project manager.

Her father Jose Eduardo dos Santos, has been President of Angola, an oil-rich country with an estimated 40% poverty rate, since 1979, four years after the country gained independence from Portugal. He stepped down in fall 2017 anfer 48 years as president.

Ms. dos Santos holds a Bachelor of Arts & Science from King’s College, London.