Prof. Dr. Michael Otto

Prof. Dr. Michael Otto is one of the most influential entrepreneurial personalities in Germany and in Europe. As an entrepreneur, donor and public citizen, he is an unrivalled figurehead for sustainable business, digital pioneering work and social responsibility.

Born in 1943 in the former West Prussian town of Kulm (in present-day Poland), he fled with his family to northern Germany after the Second World War and later grew up in Hamburg. After finishing school, he first completed a banking apprenticeship before studying economics in Munich and obtaining his doctorate. He started his own business in real estate and financial brokerage during his time as a student, when it was clear that entrepreneurial thinking was in his blood from the start.

In 1971, he joined his father's family business where he took a seat on the Executive Board with responsibility for the Textile Purchasing division, in which he established a new organizational structure. Ten years later, he took over as Chair of the Executive Board and, in this role from 1981 to 2007, developed the Otto Group into an international retail and services company with a digital vision. In the 1990s, he was one of the first in Germany to systematically push ahead with online retail. As the largest online retailer of European origin, the Otto Group is today shaping the digital retail and digital services of the future by drawing on its strength, market significance and values.

Michael Otto is a pioneer and a vanguard of a value-oriented economy.
As early as the 1980s, he anchored environmental protection and social responsibility as key corporate goals in the company strategy. In acknowledging his ecological, social and digital responsibility, he has shown that a value-oriented approach and business success can certainly go hand in hand. He is certainly a figurehead when it comes to businesses helping to shape a sustainable future

He also continued his social commitment as a donor through the establishment of organizations such as the Michael Otto Foundation for Environmental Protection (1993), the Aid by Trade Foundation (2005), the well-known Cotton Made in Africa initiative – a demand-based alliance for sustainably produced African cotton – and the Michael Otto Foundation for Sustainability, with which he focused on new impulses for promoting an open, diverse and democratic society. He is also co-founder of the KlimaWirtschaft Foundation (formerly Foundation 2° – German CEO Alliance for Climate and Economy), a non-partisan initiative of German entrepreneurs for climate protection and a member of the Club of Rome.

After retiring from the operational side of corporate business, he played a key role in the Group's cultural and digital transformation as Chair of the Supervisory Board between 2007 and 2025. In 2025, he handed over the Chair of the Supervisory Board to Alexander Birken. And in 2026, he will hand over the Chair of the Board of Trustees and Shareholders to his son Benjamin Otto, who will take over the strategic management of the Group.

Prof. Dr. Michael Otto has received numerous awards and honors for his achievements, including the Grand Federal Cross of Merit with Star, an honorary doctorate from HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management for his entrepreneurial achievements and his promotion of science, honorary citizenship of the City of Hamburg and the award of the honorary title of Professor by the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.

Michael Otto lives in Hamburg, is married to the artist Christl Otto and has two adult children.