Rank 86
Susanne Klatten
24B
BMW, pharmaceuticals
Bad Homburg
Germany
- Klatten is founder of an innovation center at Technical University of Munich, UnternehmerTUM, which claims to be the leading center for business creation in Germany.
- Her grandfather Guenther Quandt was a Nazi-era industrialist whose ex-wife married Joseph Goebbels.
- Susanne Klatten owns about 19% of automaker BMW; her brother, Stefan Quandt, owns nearly 24%.
- Their late mother, Johanna, was the third wife of legendary industrialist Herbert Quandt, who guided BMW to preeminence in the luxury market.
- An economist with an M.B.A., Klatten helped transform her grandfather's Altana AG into a world-class pharmaceutical/specialty chemical corporation.
- Klatten is the sole owner and deputy chair of Altana, which has more than $2.5 billion in annual sales.
- She also holds stakes in Entrust, which specializes in digital identity and data security, and carbon and graphite producer SGL Group.