Susanne Klatten Susanne Klatten was born Susanne Hanna Ursula Quandt on 28 April 1962 in Bad Homburg in Germany. She is the daughter of Herbert Quandt and Johanna Quandt and as a result is the richest woman in Germany.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 the University of Buckingham, followed by an MBA from IMD in Lausannespecialising in advertising. She gained further business experience in London with Dresdner Bank, then with the Munich branch of management consultants McKinsey and with the bank Reuschel & Co. Recognising that her wealth issometimes a problem, she often worked incognito under the name Susanne Kant. Police only prevented her kidnapping in 1978 at the last minute.

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 German DAX list of 30 top companies. In 2006 Altana AG sold its pharmaceutical activities to Nycomed for Ђ4.5 billion, leaving only its specialty chemicals business. The Ђ4.5 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 12.50% stake in BMW. She was appointed to the supervisory board of BMW with her brother Stefan Quandt in 1997.

Susanne met Jan Klatten while she was doing an apprenticeship with BMW in Regensburg, 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 in Kitzbьhel and live inMunich. They have three children. She also plays golf and skis in Austria. Like the other members of the Quandt family, they live quietly. She has been a member of the University Council of the Technical 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.

A programme by the German public broadcaster, ARD, in October 2007 described in detail the role of the Quandt family businesses during theSecond 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.