Rafaela Aponte-Diamant (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

: רפאלה אפונטה-דיאמנט) is an Italian-Israeli billionaire and a major shareholder of the

Mediterranean Shipping Company Mediterranean Shipping Company S.A., branded as MSC, is an international shipping line founded by Gianluigi Aponte in Italy in 1970. The company is owned by the Aponte family with its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, since 1978. It is the ...

(MSC) Group, along with her husband, Gianluigi Aponte. As of December 2024, ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

'' estimated Aponte-Diamant's

net worth Net worth is the value of all the non-financial and financial assets owned by an individual or institution minus the value of all its outstanding liabilities. Financial assets minus outstanding liabilities equal net financial assets, so net w ...

at $33 billion, ranking her as the 53rd-richest person in the world.

Early life

Aponte-Diamant was born in

Haifa Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

. As a child, she and her parents then immigrated to Switzerland, where her father worked as an executive banker in

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

, Switzerland.

Personal life

Aponte-Diamant is married to Gianluigi Aponte, an Italian businessman. They met when she was a passenger on a boat of which he was the captain. They have two children, Diego Aponte, who is group president of MSC and was the company's CEO from 2014 until November 2019, and Alexa Aponte Vago, who is CFO of MSC.

References

1945 births Businesspeople from Haifa Living people Italian businesspeople in shipping Italian billionaires Swiss billionaires Israeli billionaires Swiss Ashkenazi Jews {{Switzerland-business-bio-stub