The other Serena Williams: the mother, the militant and the entrepreneur who has amassed a fortune alone

His extraordinary sporting achievements have transformed Serena Williams in one of the greatest athletes in history. But the American is much more. Because while he collected victories and titles on the court, he developed other facets, in which he has had the same success in tennis. The former number one, who after a 25-year career will play her last US Open, has over the years become a successful entrepreneur, a staunch advocate for women’s rights and a tireless voice in the fight against racism. She and she, of course, she is a role model for the generations of tennis players who have succeeded her, especially for African American women, for whom she, along with Venus, has led the way.

“Watching her grow up was the main reason I started playing tennis,” he once said. Noemi Osaka, another former number one. More words, fewer words, that phrase has been repeated in recent years by almost all the new stars of the circuit.

Furthermore, since she became a mother, Williams has been the protagonist of the fight to generate a change in the rules and allow players who want to return to the circuit after giving birth not to have to start from scratch and to have the necessary support to combine the motherhood of success with their careers.

Having several victories on that front was the key to extending his career. Because as she had assured her in late 2018, months after she returned to court after giving birth to her daughter Olympia: “Sometimes I feel I’m not a good mother, because I work a lot, train and try to be the best athlete possible. But that also means that even if I can’t be with my daughter as much as I would like.”

“I am a woman of color and I play a sport that was not really aimed at blacks,” she said in 2020, amid the wave of protests in the United States and around the world after the murder of george floyd.

“This is why those who participate in movements for equality such as Black lives matterI tell you this, keep it up. Don’t let those trolls stop you… To others, I tell them that when someone is harassing another person, report it! ”She added.

That statement, which was part of an editorial he wrote for the magazine wiredwas just one of the many times Williams used his fame and influence to denounce the fight against racism. Months earlier she had joined the campaign promoted by her compatriot Frances Tiafoe in favor of equality and against racial discrimination.

In 2018, meanwhile, she had been one of the great defenders of Colin Kapernickthe football player who lost his seat in NFL for protesting racial discrimination in his country on his knees during the national anthem before matches.

“He did a lot for the African American community and it cost him a lot. It’s sad. But he’s still doing his best to support it. Protesting like he did doesn’t make him any less American,” he said at the time.

The Serena mother / wife, activist and tennis player often has to give space to the business woman. The American has amassed a fortune of $ 260 million over the course of her career.

Of this amount, “just” about 94 million correspond to the prizes he has won in the tournaments he plays. Although this was enough to be the player with the most money in history. Compared to his colleagues in the ATPonly members of the Large 3, Novak Djokovic (almost 159 million), Rafael Nadal (approximately 131.5 million) e Roger Federer (about 131 million),

Queen of sports marketing, she also pockets between 15 and 20 million a year from sponsorship deals. Its main sponsors are Nikewith whom he signed a $ 40 million contract in 2004 to produce a fashion line, e Kraft foods, a food manufacturer listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It is also the face of Wilson, Gatorade, Delta Airlines, Aston Martin, Pepsi Y IBMamong others.

Married with Alexis Ohanianco-founder of Reddit, Williams also knew how to invest his earnings as a tennis player to multiply his income. The American has her own line of sustainable clothing, S for Serenaand jewels, Serena Williams jewelry.

It also has stakes in companies from various sectors, such as poshmark (second hand e-commerce clothing store), SurveyMonkey (leader in the creation of online surveys in the European Union), or Bitski (an NFT market that aims to simplify the creation, purchase and sale of non-fungible tokens). He is also a minority partner of the NFL team Miami Dolphins and of City of Angelsnew franchise of the American women’s soccer championship.

Even if it is one of the companies she is most proud of Serena Venture, a venture capital firm created in 2014 to finance other companies or create some of his own, in which he will focus his energies in his new phase as a former player. He has already launched more than 30 companies, of which 60 percent are start-ups, led by women from minority groups.

“Each woman’s success should be the inspiration for another. We should lift each other up. We have to make sure we are very brave, strong, extremely kind and most importantly, humble,” she once said in an interview with the magazine. Business owner.

In 2019, Serena became the first athlete to enter the annual list of Forbes of the richest self-made women in the world (who have amassed their fortunes on their own). The American is much more than one of the greatest athletes of all time.