Susanne Klatten Biography and Profile of Susanne Klatten, Germany’s Richest Woman can be accessed below.
Newsonline understands that some people are born with a silver spoon but they didn’t stop at that. They push further to have their names printed in gold.
That can be said about Susanne Klatten who is currently Number 64 on Bloomberg’s billionaire list and the richest woman in Germany with a net worth of $21.6 billion as of May 5th 2022.
She has about a one-fifth stake in the German manufacturer of luxury vehicles, Bayerische Motoren Werke (BMW) which also includes the Mini and Rolls-Royce brands. She also has significant stakes in chemical company Altana, carbon producer, SGL Carbon, credit card maker, Entrust Datacard and turbine developer Nordex.
Susanne Klatten Biography: Profile Of Susanne Klatten, Germany’s Richest Woman
Early life and running businesses
Susanne was born on the 28th day of April 1962 to Herbert Quandt and Johanna Quandt; who was the third wife of the German businessman. Herbert had four children from his previous two marriages. After his death in 1982, his wealth was shared amongst his wives and children.
After obtaining a degree in business finance, Susanne worked for an advertising agency, Young & Rubicam in Frankfurt from 1981 to 1983. She went further to study a course in Marketing as well as Management at the University of Buckingham. The billionaire heiress also has an MBA from IMD Business School in Lausanne where she specialized in Advertising.
She interned at several banks and management consultancies and also interned as a trainee at BMW under the name Susanne Kant to avoid revealing her identity.
After the demise of Susanne’s father, she received a 50.1% stake in the pharmaceutical and chemical manufacturer, Altana where she played a major role in taking the company to a world-class corporation level, a position in German DAX’s list of top 30 companies.
Susanne sold the rights of Altana Pharmaceuticals to a Swiss company, Nycomed in 2006, for €4.5 billion, and the money was divided among the shareholders as compensation. Meanwhile, in 2009, Susanne bought most of the shares of Altana, to become the majority shareholder of the company. She ran the company alongside SKion, another firm that was wholly owned and operated by her.
She was also given an option by SGL Carbon, a German graphite maker brand, to raise the shares to almost a quarter of the shares.
Upon her mother’s death in 2015, she got 19.2% of shares of BMW and became a member of the supervisory board in BMW along with her brother, Stefan Quandt.
Susanne rescued BMW from collapsing
BMW unveiled its first hybrid with the ActiveHybrid 7 in 2010 and that was followed by its first electric car, the BMW i3 city car, released in 2013. The company also introduced its first front-wheel drive car in 2014; the BMW 2 Series Active Tourer multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) and the brand ranked third amongst electric cars sold worldwide from 2014 to 2016.
When Harald Krueger became the CEO in 2015, the business began to suffer greatly as BMW lost its market-leading position in the luxury market to the Mercedes-Benz brand. Under Herald’s watch, majority of BMW’s e-vehicle expertise joined the Bavarian company’s rivals and the business also saw its profit plunge.
In 2019, Susanne took over, installing Oliver Zipse to replace him. In recent years, however, the company has rebounded, innovating around a new generation of electric vehicles, the i4 and iX and ready to compete strongly with Tesla.
Susanne Klatten Biography Personal life and other endeavours
- Susanne was married to Jan Klatten in 1990 and together, they had three children. In 2018 however, the duo got separated.
- She also founded an educational centre for innovation and business creation, UnternehmerTUM at the Technical University of Munich.
- She also founded the Nantesbuch Foundation, an estate site that was converted into an art and nature foundation is to allow people to experience the power of nature.
- She owns 40% of Entrust Datacard, a closely held credit card and passport manufacturer.
- Susanne Klatten is politically inclined towards the center-right political party, the Christian Democratic Union and often supports donations to support their operations.
