Eldest daughter of Kazakhstan’s authoritarian ruler Nursultan Nazarbayev. As well as performing opera, Nazarbayeva has founded her own political party and become an MP and deputy prime minister, as well as speaker of the Senate.

After Nazarbayeva’s husband was charged, intially with kidnapping and then later the murder of two executives at a bank he controlled in 2007, she and her son took over his stake, swelling her considerable fortune. In 2013, Forbes named her on its list of 50 richest Kazakhs with assets of US$595 million which included a major media holding.