Segismundo Otto was born on 21 April 1966 in
Lausanne, Switzerland. His father was Archduke Leopoldo Franz, son of
Archduke Gottfried of Austria and a claimant to the defunct throne of the
Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and a great-grandson of
Ferdinand IV, Grand Duke of Tuscany, the last ruler of that state. His mother,
Laetitia d'Arenberg, is a French-Uruguayan businesswoman and socialite descended from French noble families. She settled in
Punta del Este,
Uruguay at an early age, where she developed a business career and became a prominent figure in the local social scene. He was raised between Switzerland and Uruguay. He attended private schools in Uruguay, including the
German School of Montevideo and
The British Schools of Montevideo, as well as
Greene's College Oxford in
Oxford, England. At the age of fifteen he began working at Honeywell Bull, a computer company based in
Montevideo, and later undertook studies in computer science. He was educated at the
University of Westminster, where he obtained a bachelor's degree in communication sciences. He subsequently completed a Master of Business Administration at
Imperial College London. In 1993, his father, Archduke Leopold Franz of Austria-Tuscany, renounced his rights as head of the Tuscan grand ducal family in favour of Sigismund, as his second marriage—contracted after a divorce—conflicted with the statutes of the
Order of Saint Stephen, of which he was then head. Since then, Sigismund has been the head of the Tuscan branch of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. == Marriage and issue ==