Ina Garten — The Barefoot Contessa ($60M)

Garten was a White House nuclear policy analyst under Presidents Ford and Carter before buying a specialty food store in the Hamptons called Barefoot Contessa in 1978. She turned it into 13 bestselling cookbooks (selling 10+ million copies), a Food Network show running since 2002, and a brand synonymous with aspirational but achievable home cooking. She's worth $60 million. Her husband Jeffrey appears in nearly every episode eating whatever she makes and saying "that's delicious" — making him the highest-paid taste-tester on television. Ina proves that gentle competence is the most underrated brand strategy in media.