Young Entrepreneur

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Gail Winfrey is an American media magnate, television and film producer, and talk show host with a net worth of roughly $3 billion.
With magazines, television shows and even a TV network in her portfolio, Oprah is best known for The Oprah Winfrey Show, the highest-rated talk show of all time, which ran nationally for 25 years, until 2011. The success of the show, as well as books, magazines and other ventures earned her the moniker "The Queen of All Media." And the consistent devotion of her global audience has inspired some pundits to call her the most influential woman in the world.
Winfrey was born in Mississippi to a single teenage mother in 1954. She grew up poor, moving from Mississippi to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Nashville, Tennessee, where she started her television career as a newscaster. She landed in Chicago in the early 1980s and took over a low-rated local Chicago talk show, which she soon made the top show in the Chicago market.
Following on that modest success, Winfrey launched her own media production company, and her own show, called The Oprah Winfrey Show. With the show, Winfrey re-imagined the television talk show as a forum more intimate and confessional than previous shows had been.
Over time, the show evolved, and by the mid-‘90s had moved on to new subjects, such as literature, self-improvement and spirituality. With millions of viewers, Winfrey established herself as one of America’s foremost tastemakers in matters branching from arts to culture to religion to politics.
In 2000, she started her own magazine, called O Magazine. In 2011, after the series finale of her talk show, Winfrey founded the Oprah Winfrey Network, which reaches roughly 80 million homes, or 70.3% of television-viewing households in the United States
With a winning personality and decades of success, Oprah was the richest African-American of the 20th century, and has also been named the greatest black philanthropist in American history. In 2013, President Barack Obama awarded Winfrey the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She also holds, among many other honors, honorary doctorate degrees from Duke and Harvard Universities.