By Carol Doyel –

Arianna Huffington

The subject of entrepreneurship seems to be a hot topic these days and one that is covered in almost every major business publication. As a business owner and entrepreneur myself, I find the subject fascinating and I especially love reading about successful 50+ year old entrepreneur women.

In a recent article titled, 25 Most Influential Women Tweeting About Entrepreneurship, by Holly Reisem Hanna, she found that The Next Web published a post titled, “The 25 Most Influential People Tweeting About Entrepreneurship”, which consisted of all males with the exception of one token female. In the article Holly states that, “While I enjoyed reading the list, I was a little discouraged by the fact that only one woman made the list.”

I have to agree with Holly whole heartily, it’s very disappointing that only one woman made the list. So thank you Holly for taking the time to develop your own list of the “top 25 influential women tweeting about entrepreneurship.”

Entrepreneur women are thriving and finding their place on the Internet, with more and more women using the Internet to capitalize on the latest business trends and social media mecca. You can check out some of these “Female Internet Heroes” as referred to by “The Next Women” online magazine in the article “30 Very Successful Female Internet Entrepreneurs“.

Well, we at LivingBetterat50+ decided to do a bit of research ourselves to find out who the most influential 50+ year old entrepreneur women are, not just tweeters, but women in business and on the net, doing more than just tweeting. So move over men, move over twenty & thirty something’s, and check out these 50+ women power houses! The LivingBetterat50+ Top Entrepreneur Women is in no particular order, just as we have determined their influence, recognition, income, and general on and offline success.

First on the list is Ariana Huffington, founder and Editor-in-Chief of the AOL Huffington Post Media Group, she has changed the online news world and in doing so has become a household name. In May 2005, she launched The Huffington Post, a news and blog site. And then in February of 2011 sold her business for a bzillion dollars to AOL. In 2006, and again in 2011, she was named to the Time 100, Time Magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people. One of the most successful online business women on the net at the ripe old age of 61 years old.

Oprah Winfrey, second to Madame Madame C.J. Walker as African-American female millionaires, has continued to build her brand with her newest online television network, OWN. Oprah is known world-wide and no one can deny she’s a powerhouse well deserving of her success.

Martha Stewart-Courtesy Martha Stewart Living

Martha Stewart is right behind Oprah because we feel she is another household name, but seems to garner both positive and negative reactions from the public, but none-the-less, a very successful woman and brand. Starting out in the catering business in 1976, Martha went on to launching her magazine, Martha Stewart Living, in 1990 where she serves as Editor-in-Chief. She has diversified her brand and entered the online world with her publications and continues to be a powerful online brand.

Cher Wong

Next, although you may not have heard of her, Cher Wang is one of the most successful internet entrepreneurs in the world. In fact, so much so that earlier this year she was ranked as the richest person in Taiwan! The 53-year-old is the cofounder and chair of HTC, a Taiwanese manufacturer of smart phones, and VIA Technologies, who along with her husband, Wen Chi Chen, has a net worth of US$8.8billion.

Carol Bartz

Entrepreneur Carol Bartz is the former chairman of internet services company Yahoo! A self-made female entrepreneur, the 62-year-old is challenging gender stereotypes in the workplace. She says: “Most people assume that because I’m a woman, I’m someone who’s standing behind a leader, a man.” But she adds, “The fact that they’re unenlightened is their problem, not mine.”

Tina Brown

In October 2008 Tina Brown, 57, teamed up with Barry Diller to launch The Daily Beast, an online news magazine mixing original journalism with news aggregation. It had an immediate impact and has won several awards. Last year Time magazine listed it as one of the top five news and information websites. In November 2010 The Daily Beast and Newsweek announced that they would merge their operations in a joint venture called The Newsweek Daily Beast Company with Tina Brown as Editor-in-Chief.

Mindy Grossman

Mindy Grossman, 53, is the CEO of shopping channel and website HSN where she oversees their $3 billion retail portfolio, a growing website and the company’s expansion into mobile content. She is also listed as one of Forbes’ most powerful women.

Margaret "Meg" Whitman

Internet entrepreneur Margaret ‘Meg’ Whitman 53, made her name as the head of online auction site eBay. She now works as the CEO of IT corporation Hewlett-Packard. During her ten years with eBay, she oversaw expansion from just 30 employees to more than 15,000 employees and $8 billion in annual revenue. She is the fourth wealthiest woman in the state of California with a net worth of 1.3 billion. She was named as being among the top five most powerful women by Fortune magazine and the Financial Times named her as one of the 50 faces that shaped the decade.

Susan Kurtzig

Software Industry pioneer, Sandra Kurtzig 64 has been out of the limelight for a number of years in retirement. However, she is back at it again as founder of a start-up called Kenandy, which is named after her two sons Ken and Andy. Kenandy combines manufacturing management software with cloud technology. But Kurtzig is probably better known as the founder of ASK Computer Systems. Starting out with just $2000 in 1972, Kurtzig built ASK into a successful business that at its peak boasted $450 million in annual sales, making the company into one of the 10 largest software companies in the world.

Esther Dyson

Esther Dyson, who is 60, has been referred to as the “First Lady of the Internet” and started out as a fact checker for Forbes Magazine. She is quoted in her bio as a “catalyst to many start-ups” and has become a successful internet entrepreneur. One of her companies, EDventure Holdings, sold to CNET Networks in 2004. She is now focused on ventures in private aviation and space projects as well as health care and is director of 23andMe, a consumer genetics company. Ms. Dyson’s financial investments have included Flickr, del.icio.us and Medstory, the first two selling to Yahoo and Medstory to Microsoft. She also has interest in multiple companies including Meetup Inc., Eventful.com, Boxbe and Voxiva and holdings in Space Adventures, Zero-G Corporation, XCOR Aerospace, Constellation Services International, Coastal Technologies Group, Dopplr.com, Airship Ventures and Icon Aircraft…a 50+ woman with a sense of adventure and obvious business savvy.

Keep an eye on these as well as many other up and coming 50+ year old entrepreneur women that we believe will impact business as we know it, both on and off-line in the months and years to come.

Carol Doyel is a leading expert in empowering women 50+ to be who they were created to be. An entrepreneur at heart, she launched a new product category used across the United States, developed & marketed health promotion programs for a large non-profit organization and graduated from a “Community Leadership Program” for emerging leaders. She has owned three of her own businesses and graduated from The Full Gospel Bible Institute in 2004, followed by serving in women’s ministry from 2004-2009. Carol’s community service includes, past board memberships for the YWCA and Washington Women’s Education and Employment (WWEE) and serving at a local non-profit woman’s organization based in New Orleans. The culmination of her gifts and life experience lead to launching www.livingbetterat50.com an online magazine, “Covering What Matters Most to Women 50+”.