Massimiliana Landini Aleotti

Massimiliana Landini Aleotti and her three children are set to inherit pharmaceutical giant Menarini from her late husband, Alberto Aleotti, who passed away in May 2014 at age 91. (A lawyer for the family said it can take up to a year for the inheritance to be completed.) Alberto built Menarini into one of Italy's leading drug companies, with 14 manufacturing sites around the world and more than 16,000 employees. Revenues in 2014 were $3.8 billion. Alberto Aleotti began working at Menarini in 1964, and pushed for international expansion during the 1970s and 80s. In the early 1990s, Aleotti bought Menarini from its owners. In 1992, his eldest daughter Lucia joined the company. As his health deteriorated in 2011, Aleotti handed over the reins of his empire to Lucia, who became chairman, and his son Alberto Giovanni, who became vice chairman. The Aleottis came under fire in 2010 when the Italian taxman accused them of tax evasion, initially seizing a reported $1.6 billion from the family, a move eventually annulled by the Italian Supreme Court in 2013. Yet the troubles didn't end there: after an initial settlement with tax authorities in 2011, Lucia, Alberto Giovanni, and mother Massimiliana were again accused of tax evasion by Italian authorities in 2013 to the tune of $160 million, which was added to a new investigation regarding the $1.6 billion that was previously returned. The matter remains pending.