It’s perhaps not such a surprise that an Italian woman would make it into the Forbes “richest heiress to be” list - and the fact that the Italian woman is Marina Berlusconi, Italian prime minister and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi’s daughter, is likely to be a banal result for most Italians.

Marina Berlusconi is the chair of Mondadori publishers, Italy’s largest book and magazine publisher, and also chairs her father’s Fininvest Group. This makes her one of the women who is already well positioned to inherit the company fortune, as she already has significant business interests.

If the 9.4 billion USD of Marina’s possible inheritance sounds impressive, you need to know that she is “only” second last out of 10 on the list. The first three women are all heiresses to Indian fortunes with Vanisha Mittal Bhatia, daughter of Lakshmi Mittal, first on the list.

Other European heiresses include Delphine Arnault-Gancia in forth place, as the daughter of Bernaud Arnault who is considered the 13th richest man in the world. From America was Georgina Bloomberg in seventh place, daughter of New York’s multimillionaire Michael Bloomberg.

Marina Berlusconi has also made it into the Forbes list of the most powerful women in the world, given her interests in the media industry and a father in politics. Notably absent from the list was starlet Paris Hilton, and Amanda Hearst, considered to have little hope of inheriting all their parents’ fortune. Most of the richest heiresses were women already involved in the family business, as other millionaires, such as Bill Gates, prefer to leave their fortunes to charity.

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