Rafaela Aponte-Diamant, co-founder of the shipping and cruise group MSC with her husband Gianluigi Aponte, is ranked No. 44 on the Forbes 2026 World’s Billionaires list, tied with him, with a net worth of $44.5 billion.
Rafaela Aponte-Diamant is an Italian-Israeli businesswoman. She was born in Haifa, in Mandatory Palestine. As a child she and her parents moved to Switzerland, where her father worked as a banking executive in Geneva.
Net Worth and Rank
- Forbes 2026 list: No. 44 (tied with Gianluigi Aponte), with $44.5 billion
- Source of wealth: the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) Group
Co-Founding MSC
She and Gianluigi Aponte met when she was a passenger on a boat of which he was the captain. In 1970 the couple founded MSC with a single ship. Her husband’s career is covered in his biography.
Family
- Children: Diego Aponte, MSC’s group president and its CEO from 2014 until November 2019, and Alexa Aponte Vago, the company’s chief financial officer
- Home: the Apontes live in Switzerland
- April 2026: the family announced that it had completed the transfer of ownership of MSC to Diego and Alexa
Why It Matters
MSC is a family-owned group, and Aponte-Diamant is one of its two founders, which makes her one of the richest self-made women in the world.
Net worth figures change daily with share prices. Rankings here follow the Forbes 2026 World’s Billionaires list, with wealth measured on March 1, 2026.
Image: The MSC Virtuosa cruise ship at Liverpool, June 2021 (file photo; Rafaela Aponte-Diamant is not pictured). Photo: Rodhullandemu / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
