Education
After gaining a degree in business finance, Susanne Klatten worked for the advertising agency Young & Rubicam in Frankfurt from 1981 to 1983. This was followed by a course in marketing and management at the University of Buckingham, and an MBA from IMD in Lausanne specialising in advertising.
She gained further business experience in London with Dresdner Bank, the Munich branch of management consultants McKinsey and the bank Reuschel & Co.
Recognising that her wealth is sometimes a problem, she often worked incognito under the name Susanne Kant. Police prevented an attempt to kidnap her in 1978.
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 German DAX list of 30 top companies. In 2006 Altana AG sold its pharmaceutical activities to Nycomed 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. In 2009 she bought almost all shares she did not already own in Altana.
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.
German graphite maker SGL Group said on 16 March 2009 that Susanne Klatten owns options to raise her stake in SGL from 8% to almost a quarter of the shares but no more than that.
Personal Life
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 Kitzbühel and live in Munich. 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 of the centre-right political party the Christian Democratic Union.
From : www.wikipedia.org
