- Susanne Klatten
Susanne Klatten was born Susanne Hanna Ursula Quandt on
28 April 1962 inBad Homburg inGermany . She is the daughter ofHerbert Quandt andJohanna Quandt and as a result is the richest woman in Germany.Education
Susanne Klatten gained a degree in business finance and then worked for the advertising agency
Young & Rubicam in Frankfurt from 1981 to 1983. She then did a course in marketing and management at theUniversity of Buckingham , followed by anMBA fromIMD inLausanne specialising in advertising. She gained further business experience in London withDresdner Bank , then with theMunich branch of management consultantsMcKinsey and with the bank Reuschel & Co. Recognising that her wealth is sometimes a problem, she often worked incognito under the name Susanne Kant. Police only prevented her kidnapping in 1978 at the last minute.Investments
On her father's death she inherited his 50.1% stake in pharmaceutical and chemicals manufacturer
Altana . She sits on Altana's supervisory board and helped transform it into a world-class corporation in the GermanDAX list of 30 top companies. In 2006 Altana AG sold its pharmaceutical activities toNycomed for €4.5 billion, leaving only its specialty chemicals business. The €4.5 billion was distributed to shareholders as a dividend. Altana maintained its stock exchange listing and Susanne Klatten remained its majority shareholder.Her father also left her a 12.5% stake in
BMW . She was appointed to the supervisory board of BMW with her brotherStefan Quandt in 1997.Personal life
Susanne met
Jan Klatten while she was doing an apprenticeship with BMW inRegensburg , where he worked as an engineer. During this time she called herself Kant and did not tell him who she was until they were sure about each other. They married in 1990 inKitzbühel and live inMunich . They have three children. She also plays golf and skis inAustria . Like the other members of the Quandt family, they live quietly. She has been a member of the University Council of theTechnical University of Munich since 2005. In 2007 she was awarded the "Bayerischer Verdienstorden", the Bavarian Order of Merit. She is one of the biggest donors to political parties in Germany.The family's past
A programme by the German public broadcaster, ARD, in October 2007 described in detail the role of the Quandt family businesses during the
Second World War . As a result four family members announced, on behalf of the entire Quandt family, their intention to fund a research project in which a historian will examine the family's activities during Hitler's dictatorship [ [http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,511193,00.html Description of the 2007 ARD programme by Der Spiegel] ] ] .See also
*
List of billionaires References
External links
* [http://www.forbes.com/finance/lists/10/2004/LIR.jhtml?passListId=10&passYear=2004&passListType=Person&uniqueId=EAGJ&datatype=Person Forbes.com: Forbes World's Richest People]
* [http://www.manager-magazin.de/img/0,1020,530688,00.jpgPhoto]
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