Hasso Plattner is one of the most interesting personalities to from the German business scene. The man who created one of the largest software companies in the world, SAP, is known for his unique business as well as personal style that is overridden with passion for everything he gets involved in, be it sport, business, or charity.

Born in 1944 in Berlin, much of the German entrepreneur’s style was shaped during childhood. His “street fighter” style, as he calls it, was necessary for him to make it through boarding school in Bavaria where he was sent at the age of fifteen after his parents had gotten a divorce.

In college, Plattner took on studies in telecommunications. Once graduated, he landed a job at IBM. While working for IBM at the German development lab, Plattner met his future partners with whom he soon formed SAP. He and his colleagues had a vision of creating an off-the-shelf corporate level software to help businesses with their financial and other functions. They felt such a package will provide value to companies without each one having to develop its own application from scratch.

They tried to propose the idea to IBM, but since they did not get enough support, they decided to start their own company. The four partners started what is now known as SAP.

SAP did not make it big from the get go as many of the software startups do. This might have been for the better, as they had the chance to build their own character and style into the company before growing into a bigger company. Their original software was mainly used in Europe and on mainframes. However, their offering at the time stood out from other competitors as it gave companies the opportunity to integrate their operations across departments instead of each department being run as a separate unit using its own software. Another SAP software advantage was its ability to handle multiple languages, currencies, and other country-specific parameters.

The big hit for SAP might have been the introduction of their R/3 offering in the early 1990s. It provided new ways and more flexibility for corporations’ executives, managers, and staff to view and analyze their data from multiple perspectives across the enterprise.

Plattner was the company’s visionary from the beginning. In 1998, he became the chief executive officer (CEO) after his partner, Hopp, stepped down from the position. He ran the company from two offices in Silicon Valley and at headquarters in Walldorf Germany, and did a lot of traveling visiting customers and SAP global offices.

His technical competence, passion, and style left an impact on the corporate style. His belief in his vision and his company’s software offering reached extremes where some saw it as arrogant and rigid. SAP used to offer their software to clients, without leaving much room for clients themselves to pick and choose which packages they wanted. However, in later years, when he saw the need for change, Plattner himself led the change at SAP to become more flexible and open to customers’ demands. He also became more open to alliances with other software companies and started giving more attention to marketing.

It was clear that Plattner had a personal style. He never turned away from facing major problems, and he would admit it if he made a mistake, even if it was a major one. He has been known to using his confrontational leadership style to get problems out into the open. Instead of opting for harmony and stability, he has always preferred to create positive, even if painful, conflict to raise issues using whatever it takes, to ensure his people are fully engaged into their work and doing their best.

In 2003, Plattner retired as head of SAP, but remained on the supervisory board of the company. Since his retirement, he focused on charitable work, especially through his nonprofit organizations which he set up personally. One of them is the Hasso Plattner Foundation for Software Systems Engineering, to which he contributed 50 million euro over twenty years. He also founded the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University to promote user friendly software innovations. In 2005, he created a fund of 25 million euro to help young entrepreneurs turn their innovative ideas into marketable services and products.

Plattner is married and has two children. His hobbies include, in addition to sailing, golf, tennis, and skiing.