Hasso Plattner

German businessman and philanthropist (born 1944)

Hasso Plattner (born 21 January 1944) is a German businessman who is the co-founder of SAP SE software company. From 2003 to 2024, he was the chairman of the company's supervisory board.²

From Wikipedia’s article on Hasso Plattner (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Born Jan 21, 1944.¹

Net worth $13.5B (as of 2019, per The World's Billionaires).²⁷ Richest people

About

As of August 2020, Forbes estimated his net worth at US$17.9 billion.

From Wikipedia’s article on Hasso Plattner, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.²

Companies

SAPFounder²⁸

Early life and education

Since 1963University of Karlsruhe telecommunications engineering³

Plattner was born to German ophthalmologist Horst Plattner (1918–2001) and his wife shortly before the end of the Second World War, in Berlin. He grew up in Bavaria and completed his masters degree in communications engineering from the University of Karlsruhe in 1968.

From Wikipedia’s article on Hasso Plattner (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Career

Occupation: business informatician, entrepreneur, patron of the arts, computer scientist, manager, philanthropist, engineer.¹⁰

Since 1972Worked at SAP⁴
1968 to 1972Worked at IBM⁴
Date not recordedFounded Hasso Plattner Foundation⁵
Date not recordedFounded Impressionism: The Hasso Plattner Collection⁶
Date not recordedFounded Museum Barberini⁷
Date not recordedFounded SAP⁸
Date not recordedFounded Hasso Plattner Institute⁹

In 1972, Plattner and four colleagues left IBM to launch SAP, where he eventually was co-chief executive (together with Henning Kagermann) from 1998. He stepped down in 2003 at age 60.

From 2003 to 2024, Plattner chaired the company's supervisory board and played an influential role in the company's governance, orchestrating the hiring of co-CEOs Jennifer Morgan and Christian Klein in 2019. He has reduced his stake in SAP several times; as of 2020, he owned a 5.89% stake, making him the company's largest individual shareholder.

In 1998, Plattner founded the non-profit Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI). He is Chair of Enterprise Platform and Integration Concepts and Professor of Enterprise Systems at HPI.

In 2005, Plattner set up his own venture capital fund, Hasso Plattner Ventures, with more than 25 million euros. By December 2009, HPV managed €150 million and had 17 companies in its portfolio, including online cruise portals Dreamlines. An affiliate fund, HPV Africa in Cape Town, was founded in 2008, with €29 million, and soon invested in five companies. Plattner provides the lion's share of this investment capital. In September 2010, HPV invested $6 million in Israeli software company Panaya in exchange for the company's stakes.

From Wikipedia’s article on Hasso Plattner (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Personal life

BornJan 21, 1944, Berlin¹¹
CitizenshipGermany¹²
ResidenceBabelsberg, Altenbach¹³
Children2^{14 15}

Plattner is married to Sabine Plattner, a former teacher. The couple has two daughters, who grew up in Heidelberg, Germany.

Plattner lives in San Jose, California, which he considers his 'adopted home'. Since his retirement from SAP he hasn't visited Germany. The family also maintains residences in Potsdam's Babelsberg district, Sylt and Yzerfontein.

From Wikipedia’s article on Hasso Plattner (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Philanthropy

Plattner signed The Giving Pledge in February 2013. In 2015, he set up the Hasso Plattner Foundation and the charity's activities span education, art and culture, and conservation. Since 2017, the foundation has been headquartered at Villa Wunderkind in Potsdam, the former home of German fashion designer Wolfgang Joop.

HIV/AIDS

Plattner has had strong connections with South Africa over the years and spends some of his time living there, while participating in charitable work. In the fight against AIDS, he supports the universities of KwaZulu Natal and Cape Town.

Plattner's donation of €6 million for the Isombululo programme for the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS was announced at the Presidents Cup, one of the world's leading international golf tournaments in 2003 and it is suggested that this amount will have helped 360,000 people. In the spring of 2005, Plattner personally covered the costs of the 46664 benefit concert, which took place at his Gary Player-designed golf course, The Links of Fancourt in George which is near Cape Town and which was broadcast globally on television. Proceeds went towards the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, an organisation co-founded by former South African president Nelson Mandela.

Architecture and visual arts

Plattner contributed more than €20 million which enabled reconstruction of the historic exterior of the Stadtschloss in Potsdam, which had damaged during World War II and demolished in 1959. At the time, it was the largest donation ever gifted in Germany by a single individual.

In 2016, Plattner joined forces with art dealer Guy Wildenstein to form the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, a foundation dedicated to advancing art historical scholarship by fostering the accessibility, cataloguing, and digitisation of primary sources.

Plattner also helped in the establishment of the Museum Barberini, devoted to his holdings of modern and Impressionist art, as well as artists active in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). For the museum, he purchased one of Monet’s 1890 Meules paintings for $110.7 million at a 2019 Sotheby's auction, making it the most high-priced Impressionist work ever sold at auction. In 2022, he opened Das Minsk, another private museum in Potsdam, which focuses on East German artists who were active after the fall of the Berlin wall.

Research

Since his retirement from SAP, Plattner has been particularly active as a benefactor in the field of technological research. Media reports have named him one of Germany's most important private sponsors of scientific research. In 1998, Plattner founded the Hasso Plattner Institute for software systems engineering based at the University of Potsdam, and in Palo Alto, California, its sole source of funding being the non-profit Hasso Plattner Foundation for Software Systems Engineering. Plattner has pledged €50 million of his personal fortune over a period of 20 years. Since its foundation, Plattner's commitment to the HPI has quadrupled to over €200 million. He not only fully finances the HPI, but is also actively involved as a director and lecturer in Enterprise Platforms and Integration Concepts.

In October 2005, with a donation of US$35 million, Plattner founded the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University. Students of varying disciplines have been charged with the development of user-friendly innovations. Another of Plattner's pledges to promote science was of €10 million to redevelop the library at the University of Mannheim, Germany, given in 2003.

From Wikipedia’s article on Hasso Plattner (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Awards

2020honorary doctorate of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology^{16 25}
2017Werner von Siemens Ring^{16 23}
2017honorary citizen of Potsdam^{16 24}
2014Leonardo Award^{16 22}
2007Order of Merit of Brandenburg^{16 19}
2004Leibniz Medal^{16 21}
2002honorary doctor of the University of Potsdam^{16 20}
2001Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany^{16 19}
1998Ehrensenator^{16 18}
1990honorary doctor of the Saarland University^{16 17}
Date not recordedRudolf-Diesel-Medaille¹⁶

Net worth over time

Mar 1, 20172019

2019$13.5B per The World's Billionaires^{26 27}
2018$12.7B²⁶
Mar 1, 2017$11.2B per Forbes²⁶

Sources

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WikidataHasso Plattner on Wikidata
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WikipediaHasso Plattner on Wikipedia
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WikidataHasso Plattner: education, on Wikidata
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WikidataHasso Plattner: Worked at IBM, on Wikidata
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WikidataHasso Plattner: Founded Hasso Plattner Foundation, on Wikidata
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WikidataHasso Plattner: Founded Impressionism: The Hasso Plattner Collection, on Wikidata
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WikidataHasso Plattner: Founded Museum Barberini, on Wikidata
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WikidataHasso Plattner: Founded SAP, on Wikidata
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WikidataHasso Plattner: Founded Hasso Plattner Institute, on Wikidata
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WikidataHasso Plattner: occupation, on Wikidata
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WikidataHasso Plattner: place of birth, on Wikidata
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WikidataHasso Plattner: citizenship, on Wikidata
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WikidataHasso Plattner: net worth 2019, on Wikidata
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WikidataSAP, Founder