Otto The Modest

Even in Germany, not too many people know that Hamburg retailer Otto Group is second only to Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN ) in business-to-consumer e-commerce worldwide. But then, Chief Executive Michael Otto has never been much of a self-promoter. The billionaire son of the company founder rarely gives interviews and recoils at the idea of taking the $18.5 billion family-held company public. Otto, whose family's wealth has been estimated at more than $10 billion and who owns such pricey real estate parcels as the 47-story office tower at 1177 Avenue of the Americas in New York, is one of Germany's richest men. Yet he doesn't play the role of a tycoon. Reserved and down-to-earth, he often relaxes by playing a game of volleyball with Otto workers.

In Germany, Otto's style would be called bescheiden. That translates as modest, frugal, or unpretentious. Those qualities no doubt helped Otto avoid giving in to the greed of the dot-com era. Instead of cashing out, he hung on to develop a business model that has made his company a real power on the Internet, with online sales last year of $3.8 billion. Otto has made regular scouting trips to U.S. high-tech companies since the 1980s, and early on he figured out how to harness the Net in service of the retailer's traditional German mail-order business.