Capital: € 18.7 billion
Age: 57
Born: 04/28/1962
Country of origin: Germany
Source of wealth: Entrepreneur
Last updated: 2024

Short introduction

Susanne Klatten is an entrepreneur from Germany and is one of the richest people in the world. She is 58 years old and lives in Munich. Susanne Klatten has three children and lives separated from her husband Jan Klatten. Her hobbies include skiing and hiking. She lives more in seclusion and is rarely seen in public.

Early life

Susanne Klatten was born on April 28, 1962 in Bad Homburg in Hesse and comes from a family of industrialists. She is the daughter of Herbert Quandt and his third wife Johanna. Although she comes from a very wealthy family, Susanne Klatten grew up relatively “normally”. Only in the mid to late 1970s, when the fear of an attack by the Red Army faction grew, did a phase of foreclosure take place. Susanne Klatten graduated from the Kaiserin-Friedrich-Gymnasium in Bad Homburg. After Herbert Quandt’s death, at the age of 20, she inherited the father’s assets, which included shares in BMW, together with her mother and her two-year-old brother Stefan.

Career

Between 1981 and 1983 Susanne Klatten completed an apprenticeship as an advertising clerk at Young & Rubicam in Frankfurt am Main. This was followed by a degree in business administration from the University of Buckingham in Great Britain. She then completed an MBA at the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland. Susanne Klatten worked as an intern at Deutsche Bank and incognito at the BMW plant in Regensburg. In 1993 she became a member of the supervisory board of Altana AG and later deputy chair. Four years later, she and her brother formally inherited the father’s legacy from the BMW car group. She is a member of the supervisory board and partner of BMW. Through the holding company SKion, it holds shares in other companies in various areas of economic life.

Career highlights

With well-considered investments, Susanne Klatten succeeded in steadily increasing her assets. It is estimated by the US business magazine Forbes to be around 21.1 billion US dollars. In 2019, she was 46th on the Forbes list of the richest people in the world. In Germany, she is the third richest person. With her economic success, her profound knowledge and her extensive commitment to charitable projects, Susanne Klatten has received multiple recognition. She has been an honorary senator at the Technical University of Munich since 2004. She has been a member of their university council since 2005. In the same year she received the Federal Cross of Merit. Two years later she received the Bavarian Order of Merit. In 2009 she donated around EUR 10 million to the Technical University of Munich, which was used to set up the Susanne Klatten Endowed Chair for Empirical Educational Research.

Famous quotes

“If you have funds at this level, you have to take care of it. It’s not something you can spend. ” “At some point you have a nice house and a holiday home, you can eat well and go on vacation. You have to invest such large amounts. It is an opportunity and it is a wonderful task. ” “The role as guardian of wealth also has personal aspects that are not so nice: you are always visible and at risk, you have to protect yourself. Then there is envy, a trait that is particularly widespread in Germany. ”
“It is fair when everyone can seize opportunities and develop their full potential based on their abilities. And if you actively perceive this, then many people can go very far. ” “Our potential manifests itself in the role of having inherited and developing it. We work hard for it every day. ” “I am more than a rich heiress.” ”But what kind of adjective is that: rich? That doesn’t describe people, it only describes a status. It may be important to others. But not me. ” “I like to pay taxes, here in Germany too, and it will continue to do so. But as a donor, I would like to set my own standards and allocate funds in such a way that they benefit other non-profit purposes than the state provides for in its basic services. ”

Success tips

For Susanne Klatten, education has always been a key to success. On the one hand, this includes obtaining formal qualifications from good educational institutions. On the other hand, continuous training was a trademark for them. Susanne Klatten is characterized by a great sense of duty. Although she is a billionaire, she sees her wealth as an object of society as a whole, which serves to create value and secure jobs. It was always important for her to emphasize that money alone does not make you happy and that it can be risky and stressful to have a large fortune. Diligence, hard work and family relationships are further values of the entrepreneur. In her experience, she received at least as much recognition from her commitment to society as a whole from the fact that she has immense assets.

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