Belgian-born designer Diane von Furstenberg is chairman of her eponymous fashion company. Her signature wrap dress became a ’70s cultural phenomenon and ignited a career that would encompass apparel, cosmetics, jewelry, luggage, home shopping and freestanding boutiques around the world.

Von Furstenberg studied at the University of Madrid and the University of Geneva, Switzerland, where she majored in economics and met her first husband. Her marriage to Prince Eduard Egon von Furstenberg, heir to the Fiat automobile fortune, bestowed upon her the title of princess.

After the wildly successful wrap dress glutted the market, she licensed the brand, butwhen her cosmetics business grew too fast, she was forced to sell in the mid-80s. Divorced from the prince, the entrepreneur took a hiatus and moved to Paris, where she founded Salvy, a French language publishing house.

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Her 1990 return to New York heralded a comeback. She relaunched her famous wrap dress in 1997, and reentered  the world of cosmetics. Eventually, she embraced the online shopping market and began opening her own boutiques..

As president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), von Furstenberg tapped her formidable network to build alliances across the industry and tackled the topic of too-skinny runway models. She is also a director of IAC/InterActiveCorp, run by her husband, Barry Diller.