World of Forbes

Around the planet, our 36 licensed editions span five continents, 28 languages and 24 time zones. They share the same mission: celebrating entrepreneurial capitalism in all its forms.

Around the globe with our 36 international editions.

BULGARIA

After a heart attack in 2008, Nikolai Sabev adopted Buddhism and expects his clients can find Zen, too. The e-commerce logistics platforms built by his Econt will make Bulgarians richer, he says, and then “they will have time for spirituality.”

FRANCE

Art Paris, the contemporary fair held at the Grand Palais that welcomed more than 60,000 visitors in 2019, returned in September as one of Europe’s first major events in months, limiting crowds to 3,000 at a time.

CHINA

After earning a biochemistry Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati and doing a stint at Pfizer, Samantha Du started Shanghai-based pharma company Zai Lab in 2014; it now has a $6 billion market cap.

GEORGIA

Seventh on Forbes Georgia’s list of 12 postSoviet countries’ highestpaid leaders, Georgia’s president, Salome Zourabichvili, earns $2,222 per month, all of which she redirects to a foundation.

ANGOLA

José Silva is planning a $30 million factory to produce painkillers and add some 300 jobs in Luanda, the Angolan capital— growing the MonizSilva pharmacy chain and medical-supply distributor he started in 1998.

COLOMBIA

Bogotá’s first female mayor, Claudia López (top left), fronts Forbes Colombia’s first Power Women edition. Her goals seem to extend well beyond local government: “I have no doubt that in this decade there will be a woman president in Colombia.”

GREECE

The EU and China have renewed an agreement for 2021 that Greece badly wanted: It offers some protection to foods like Greece’s olives, wine and ouzo from those selling knockoff goods.

AUSTRIA

Founded by a trio of high school classmates, the startup Book Your Room rents idle meeting spaces and school gymnasiums throughout Vienna.

BOLIVIA

“The fashion industry was in chaos,” says Deanna Canedo Patiño, reflecting on the immediate consequences of the pandemic. Now she’s planning growth into Europe and Latin America for her family’s maker of alpacaand llama-based clothes, Beatriz Canedo Patiño.

CYPRUS

Finance Minister Konstantinos Petridis revised his year-end economic forecast based on government aid and increasing consumption. Public debt will shrink by 4%, followed by restrained government spending in 2021.

HUNGARY

Dávid Boross, 40, and his brothers took over their parents’ Oázis Garden Centers five years ago. The Budapest franchise has grown to 24 locations and targets green-thumbed young people.

ARGENTINA

Pastalinda’s factory can’t keep up with rising demand for its $239 at-home noodle-making machines, deemed essential manufacturing during the pandemic. “No matter how much stock we add to the web, it runs out in five hours,” says president Jonathan Romero.

BRAZIL

The pandemic boosted São Paulo–based iFood’s corporate accounts, with which companies can load credits for employees to order lunch delivered wherever they’re working.

CZECH REPUBLIC

When a customer canceled a purchase of 11 Czech-made Petrof pianos after they were already built, billionaire Karel Komárek, his wife Štěpánka Komárková and his foundation swooped in to buy the instruments and donate them to local schools.

INDIA

Salil Parekh, CEO of Infosys, has spent the past months shifting about 240,000 employees of the IT firm to home offices and landing a deal with Vanguard that’s reportedly worth $1.5 billion.

INDONESIA

In the first half of 2020, demand for pharmaceuticals dropped in Indonesia as people avoided visiting doctors and hospitals. But sales at CEO Irwan Hidayat’s herbal-medicine and supplements maker, Sido Muncul, rose to almost

$100 million.

NICARAGUA

Small artisan shoemakers

in the southeast city of Masaya are quietly fighting to survive the pandemic. With fewer orders, Zapatería Cano owner Francisca Vásquez halved her workers’ hours and reduced daily production from

400 pairs to 200.

RUSSIA

Forbes Russia’s list of the country’s richest women includes three who divorced billionaire husbands. In the second spot: Polina Yumasheva, ex-wife of industrialist Oleg Deripaska. She’s

worth $300 million.

SPAIN

With prescriptions and medical history now online in some areas, Spain nearly met its 2020 deadline for

digitized government.

ISRAEL

“We had no money at all for textbooks, shoes or new clothes,” recalls Gina Khoury of her youth. Now, along with her sister Rania, she runs a popular dress boutique, Rania Gina, which has made Forbes Israel’s list of the nation’s top small companies.

KAZAKHSTAN

Forbes Kazakhstan

30 Under 30 honoree Bakhtiyar Azhken, 24, helped create a breathalyzer-style device that helps detect cancer early; it’s now being used as a Covid-19 diagnostic tool.

POLAND

University of Warsaw classmates Monika Żochowska and Ewa Dudzic have created a microfiber makeup-removing glove. Their brand, Phenicoptere, currently does $2 million in revenue, ships to 60 countries and has additional products in development.

SENEGAL

Finding only imported baby food in Senegal, Siny Samba cofounded Le Lionceau in 2017; its purées are made of local crops such

as millet and cowpea.

THAILAND

Thai conglomerate TOAVH is involved

in paint, chemicals, auto parts and more. The billionaire Tangkaravakoon

family owns it, and 45-year-old Nattavuth Tangkaravakoon runs it. His parents chair the company; his siblings are involved as well.

KENYA

Tasked to turn around an insolvent lender in 1993, James Mwangi positioned Nairobi-based Equity for the unbanked—people like

his mother, who stored savings under a mattress. Today it serves 14 million customers in six countries.

SAUDI ARABIA

Until 2018, Saudi Arabia forbade women from driving. That didn’t stop Reema Juffali from becoming a top race-car driver, competing last year in the British F4 Championship for the first time.

SLOVAKIA

What most worries Šimon Šicko, CEO of Pixel Federation video games? Not the pandemic, “an episode that we may forget about in three years’ time.” Instead, it’s that “environmental change will

catch up with us.”

ITALY

Working with MIT Media Lab, Valentina Sumini, a 34-year-old Genoese architect, designs conceptual spaces such as a greenhouse to be built on Mars.

LATVIA

This year brought Riga-based DoctorOnline a “pleasant baptism of fire,” says Santa Batuhtina-Bang,

who helped create the website and app. Its 130-plus

doctors saw tele-appointments surge from about two

per day to as many as 80.

PORTUGAL

Michelin-starred chef José Avillez has had to put his business on ice: His 13 restaurants across Portugal and Dubai temporarily closed, and plans for one in Macau have paused.

UKRAINE

Alexey Vadatursky, 73, is boldly betting on slow, costly river shipping. Spending millions over 10 years, his Mykolaiv-based Nibulon has launched a cargo fleet more

eco-friendly and smoothriding than trucks and trains.

JAPAN

Baseball exec Shun Kakazu has orders from team owner Masayoshi Son to make the champion SoftBank Hawks “best in the world.” In the game plan: expanding Japan’s pro league into China.

MEXICO

National Autonomous University of Mexico researcher and engineer José Alberto Ramírez Aguilar will represent Mexico on Latin America’s first space mission, which will fly aboard a spacecraft from Jeff

Bezos’ Blue Origin.

ROMANIA

Last year the sisters behind Lemon Interior Design staged Romania’s most expensive apartment and expanded into office buildings. Now they’re consulting with national health officials about redesigning

offices for Covid-19.

SOUTH KOREA

Thousands of Korean surgery patients have received 3D-printed implants made of bonelike material that decomposes after guiding tissue to heal fractures. T&R Biofab founder Yun Won-Soo is seeking approval for use in the U.S.

VIETNAM

The duo behind Con Cung’s stores for kids and babies expect to triple their locations to 1,200 by 2023.