Korean-American IT Leader Thai Lee Named US's 4th Richest Woman

Thai Lee, Founder and CEO of SHI International, was ranked fourth on Forbes' list of self-made self-made women in America with an estimated net worth of $8 billion.   

The 67-year-old businesswoman jumped one spot from last year's ranking thanks to an uptick in net worth greater than $2 billion. She is one of the handful of Asian Americans in the top 10 list of this year.

Thai is the 60 percent owner of SHI International, one of the largest privately held U.S. IT providers, while her former husband, Leo KoGuan, is the other 40 percent owner. The pair paid less than $1 million for a software reseller in 1989 that later became SHI. SHI appears on Forbes's 2025 list of the 100 largest private companies in America, coming in at #26.

Nearly half the top 10 on Forbes' list of America's top self-made women entrepreneurs are technology entrepreneurs, according to earlier this month's list.

The biggest mover in this year's ranking was Daniela Amodei, 38, president and co-founder of Anthropic, who jumped from 28th place to second with an estimated net worth of $15.5 billion. Since the last funding round, her fortune has skyrocketed from $1.2 billion to its current level, thanks to the AI company.

Key Highlights:

• Thai Lee ranked No. 4 on Forbes' list of America's richest self-made women, with a net worth of $8 billion
• She turned SHI International from a small IT reseller into a global tech company with $15 billion in annual revenue
• Lee is one of the few Asian American women in Forbes' top 10 self-made women ranking

Other top 10 list members included Judy Faulkner, 82, founder and CEO of medical-record software provider Epic Systems, third on the list with an estimated net worth of $9.6 billion, as well as Jayshree Ullal, 65, CEO of computer networking firm Arista Networks, who was ranked seventh with an estimated net worth of $6.8 billion.

Born in Bangkok, Thailand, Thai was named after her birthplace. She lived in South Korea for most of her childhood and went to the U.S. when she was a teen. Lee earned her biology and economics degrees from Amherst College and then an MBA from Harvard Business School (HBS) in 1985, which she attended after completing her work at Daesung Industrial in South Korea.

In 1989, Thai and KoGuan bought a small IT firm in New Jersey and renamed it Software House International, demonstrating their goal of establishing a world-class tech firm.

SHI expanded its operations into cloud computing, data center and workplace technology services over the next few decades. It currently supports over 20,000 customers such as Boeing, Johnson & Johnson and AT&T, has 35 offices in the world, employs over 5,000 people, and brings in roughly $15 billion of annual revenues.

Thai, who has said Buddhist teachings help her maintain perspective in business, has repeatedly credited SHI's employees for the company's success. "A dollar amount could never accurately convey the respect and admiration I have for the employees of SHI," she told Forbes when discussing her inclusion on the self-made women list a decade ago.