Kerry Packer's eldest grandchild, the daughter of Gretel and British financier Nick Barham, possesses her grandmother Roslyn's grace, her mother's looks and her late "Poppy's" sharp wit and confidence.

She laughs off a suggestion she could follow in her uncle James's footsteps.

"I love business, I just don't think I'm going to be a casino magnate," she says.

"My favourite thing is when people assume something about me and I shock them by knowing something. I think being underestimated is the best thing on the planet."

Packer Barham has had three years in the media spotlight since her social-scene debut at a Paris ball, and hired high-profile Sydney identity Roxy Jacenko as her publicist last year.

"FPB", the initials emblazoned on her Burberry backpack and proudly posted on her Instagram account (boasting 225,000 followers), clearly wants to make an impact and won't live her life out of the spotlight like other Packer women have done since the 1950s.

But who is she - and what legacy does she want to leave with the multimillion-dollar fortune she stands to inherit?

We meet in her heartland, Sydney's plush Double Bay, where she lives alone with her three dogs - Louis, Elizabeth Taylor and Minnie Mouse. She is strikingly like her late grandfather in many ways: an imposing presence (albeit aided by a pair of towering 14-centimetre YSL Tribute heels), her red lipstick drawing attention to a sensuous mouth that emits a megawatt smile.

"Chessie", as she is known to her closest friends, is a combination of traditional "old money" values, new ideas and strong convictions, the same traits that made her grandfather Australia's richest man.

"I don't mind the fact that men seem to think they're better in certain situations because I like to think we [women] can do anything they can do, but we can do it in heels," she says.

Like her elders, she finds elements of our smartphone-enabled society a tad arriviste. "I have nothing other than Instagram," she says. "Honestly, if I want to talk to somebody I have their number and they have mine.

"I don't have Snapchat and I get furious when anyone tries to take photos of me for it. There is a limit to over-sharing and there comes a point where you're doing something really fun and you look around and everyone is on their phones, and it's silly. No one needs to know what everyone is doing at any given moment of the day. I don't understand it."

But she believes her grandfather would have enjoyed aspects of the digital and virtual revolutions.

"He loved TV because you got to see it - it was in front of your face - which is Instagram. Everything is online, everything is at the touch of your finger. Maybe the privacy and over-sharing, he'd be a little bit, 'Woah, what is going on there?' but I think that's how most people would react who haven't experienced the level of openness that my generation seems to find very, very exciting. It's much more immediate, and he was much more immediate - he didn't like to wait for things. It's probably a family trait."

As for her plans, Packer Barham has been studying psychology at the University of Sydney but sees philanthropy as a "more natural fit".

Her mother Gretel, who debuted on this year's BRW Rich List with an estimated wealth of $739 million, is a long-time philanthropist and arts patron. She was pivotal in establishing the family's $200 million National Philanthropic Fund, which funds artistic and Indigenous education projects.

Packer Barham is now involved with numerous artistic ventures and charities including the Red Cross - an organisation her great-grandmother, Gretel, worked with full-time during World War II - and she sits on the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute's Young Appeals Committee.

She also supports the charity Pink Hope, which works to support women at risk of breast and ovarian cancer.

"She is very passionate about women's health," says Pink Hope founder Krystal Barter. "She's not only a ridiculously stunning girl in beautiful clothes going to gala events, she actually supports causes any way she can."

Currently, Packer Barham is on a gap year. She spent a month volunteering in Vietnam with the Christina Noble Foundation. She met the children's rights activist on a recent trip to London while visiting her father, who introduced her as "Chessie" before she corrected him saying, "Hello, I'm Francesca."

But make no mistake, she also loves the high life and publishes lavish accounts of it on Instagram. Frame by frame, her fans follow as she flits from the Coachella festival in California to the Mediterranean, where she holidays with her uncle and his famous friends like Robert De Niro on board the family icebreaker Arctic P.

She celebrated her 21st birthday last November with 300 guests, including Today host Lisa Wilkinson. Luna Park was the venue, at a cost of about $250,000. Guests were told to "Come as who you wanted to be when you were a kid" and donations for The Children's Hospital at Westmead were taken in lieu of gifts. Packer Barham, first as Minnie Mouse and later as a ballerina, held court with her mother and grandmother.

Packer Barham is also a talented singer. Music was one of the main attractions of her former flame,

Van Hoorn guitarist Joshua Mullane, now 32. Before the end of their six- month romance last year, Mullane had encouraged her to perform more. (She recently split from 24-year-old Melbourne property developer Kelli Holland and is now single.)

"Historically there's a whole bunch of creative interests that have spawned careers for my family. No one thought my grandad could do TV, no one thought my uncle would go into movies," she says. "So I'm going to roll with it and see what happens."

She was set to relocate to Melbourne this year but this thoroughly modern heiress is now considering spreading her wings further.

"I'm umming and ahhing about Melbourne. It's different to Sydney but it's not that different. Sydney has a bubble, and Melbourne also has a bubble so I'm thinking if I'm really going to make that move, I would maybe think about making it a bit further. So I'm trying to figure out where my head is at with that."

Close friend Christian Wilkins, son of Nine's entertainment reporter Richard, believes Australia won't contain her. The pair met, age four, on the ski slopes of Perisher but have only reconnected recently.

"I think she'll head overseas, at least for a few years," Wilkins says. "She's a super-smart young lady with the world at her feet, she's intelligent, talented, funny and kind. The possibilities are endless, she could just as easily run a major company as she could pursue her musical talents."

Packer Barham's childhood was anything but ordinary. She was born in Sydney but spent her early years in Surrey, a quiet British county known for its high concentration of millionaires.

"I'd go and stay with my English grandma. She'd make me ride side saddle and I'd be there at all of the horse shows in a dress, riding side saddle and they're all paying me out.

"I just wanted to be normal," says Packer Barham, who became an accomplished dressage rider.

She returned to Sydney aged five with her mother and the eldest of three younger brothers in 1999, following her parents' divorce.

Like her mother, she attended the exclusive Ascham School in Sydney, "because that's what we do".

Her friends didn't understand why some weekends involved going to St Vincent's Hospital she says of her time learning about the family's philanthropic ventures.

Gretel's parenting was firm, but kind. "My mum definitely made me eat all the vegies and I was only allowed TV for one hour on a Saturday, so I guess that's different. Everyone's got their own normal and this is mine, it's cool."

Packer Barham took her first gap year at the age of 18, living in New York and working for wellness and juicing advocate Joe Cross, a long-time friend of the Packer family, and James's ex-wife Erica.

At 19, she made her official entrance into society at Paris's heralded Le Bal des Débutantes alongside Robert Kennedy jnr's daughter, Kyra.

"It was one of the funniest moments of my life," she recalls. "It's so old-fashioned and ridiculous, dripping with diamonds and ball gowns, and everyone was on their phone.

"Other than that, it looked like something out of the Renaissance."

Coming from a famously private family, Packer Barham caused ripples when she employed publicist Roxy Jacenko last year.

Jacenko is coy about her relationship with her client and refuses to answer questions for this interview, only confirming they met through a mutual friend. "They probably bonded over their love of [Hermès] Birkins," says another mutual friend, referring to the bag that costs upwards of $17,000.

Earlier this year, the pair travelled as guests of Louis Vuitton to attend Paris Fashion Week, an indication that both are regular, big-spending customers.

In 2015, during a charity luncheon hosted by Crown for the Luke Batty Foundation, Packer Barham placed a successful $14,000 bid for an item from the luxury fashion house.

While she and Jacenko are friends, Packer Barham's most trusted advisers are from within her own fold.

Her mother and grandmother Roslyn, (whom she calls "nonna") are her anchors. "For me, growing up with my mum and my nonna ... they're very strong in the sense of being feminine," she says.

"What my mum and nonna do so well is that they don't talk themselves up, they don't make a song and dance. They come in quietly, they look amazing, they do what they need to do ... effortlessly and elegantly, and it's easy. It comes across as so much more powerful."

Last week Roslyn Packer was awarded a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) for her work.

Packer Barham is highly conscious of her family's legacy. The Packers are the closest thing Australia has to a royal family and, like the Duchess of Cambridge, she always wears modest day dresses with hosiery when representing the firm.

She becomes emotional when asked about her late grandfather and says she hopes the media baron would be proud of her life choices so far.

Packer Barham is currently reading former Australian Financial Review reporter Michael Stahl's book, Kerry Packer: Tall Tales and True Stories.

"I saw him very differently to how everyone else did, because I always thought he was a teddy bear," she says. "Apparently he was terrifying - I don't know what that's about. I did see a side of him that was really special, and it's mine."

She is unsure if she'll return to university to complete her degree, saying, "The piece of paper is nice and it keeps everyone else happy and I'll probably get one just for that reason."

For now, she is happy completing an interior design course online while she travels the world - again.

"It's the 'why not' year," she notes. "Then, I know me, I'll probably be married with kids and a house in Bellevue Hill in 10 years' time, resign to the fate," she laughs. "Which I'll very happily do so, it'll be fine.

"Why not go out and try it? I don't want to be sitting back, wishing I'd done this or tried that." •