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Obama Nominates Chicago Business Leader Penny Pritzker for Commerce Secretary

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While Penny Pritzker has garnered a reputation as a top-tier businesswoman, controversial financial issues involving her family may hamper her confirmation as Secretary of Commerce.
While Penny Pritzker has garnered a reputation as a top-tier businesswoman, controversial financial issues involving her family may hamper her confirmation as Secretary of Commerce.
President Obama nominated Chicago business leader Penny Pritzker – a major fundraiser for the president – this past week for Secretary of Commerce. Obama called Pritzker “one of our country’s most distinguished business leaders.”

Pritzker – who has an estimated net worth of $1.85 billion – has been ranked by Forbes Magazine as the 277th wealthiest person in the United States. In the event of her confirmation, she would become the richest member of the present cabinet.

Obama’s latest nominee raised her public profile by overseeing his fundraising operation during his maiden presidential run in 2008. While she took a less active leadership role in his 2012 re-election run, she did donate $117,000 to the campaign and bundled over a half million dollars in contributions. Pritzker also donated $250,000 to Obama’s most recent inauguration.

Pritzker had been originally considered for the Commerce post during Obama’s first term, but concerns regarding her family’s financial interests short-circuited that nomination. In addition to other issues, the Pritzkers owned half of Superior Bank, a savings and loan located in the suburbs of Chicago that failed in 2001 due to an overload of subprime loans. Penny Pritzker served as chairman of Superior until 1994. The family has also drawn hostility from labor unions, as the Pritzker clan’s Hyatt Hotels chain has been embroiled in a battle with hotel unions. Penny Pritzker sits on the board of the Hyatt chain.

A frequent guest at the White House, Pritzker served on Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness and his Economic Recovery Advisory Board. She is founder, chairman and CEO of PSP Capital Partners and its affiliate, Pritzker Realty Group (PRG), and is the co-founder and chairman of Artemis Real Estate Partners. Pritzker has earned both a law degree and an MBA from Stanford University, where she is a trustee.

The Pritzker family fortune was established by Penny’s grandfather, A.N. Pritzker, who together with his sons Jay, Donald and Robert founded both Hyatt and Marmon Holdings, an industrial conglomerate that was sold in 2007 to Buffett‘s Berkshire Hathaway for an impressive $4.5 billion, as part of a family breakup. The last of the two sons died in 2011, leaving Penny Pritzker’s generation in charge of the financial empire. Currently, 10 members of the Pritzker family are individually wealthy enough to make the Forbes 400 list.

In his nomination of her, Obama asserted that Penny Pritzker has “more than 25 years of management experience in industries including real estate, finance and hospitality. She’s built companies from the ground up. She knows from experience that no government program alone can take the place of a great entrepreneur. She knows that what we can do is give every business and every worker the best possible chance to succeed by making America a magnate for good jobs.” The president added that Pritzker has been “an extraordinary civic leader in our shared hometown of Chicago” and “the driving force behind Skills for America’s Future, which is a program that brings together companies and community colleges to shape and prepare skills-based training programs for workers that are tied into the businesses that potentially will hire them.”

The position of Secretary of Commerce has remained unfilled since last June, when John E. Bryson, the former CEO of Edison International, resigned after being involved in two California hit and run car accidents that he later claimed were caused by a medical seizure. The department has been run in the interval by Deputy Secretary Rebecca M. Blank, a PhD economist who is leaving to take over the role of chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

National Association of Manufacturers President and CEO Jay Timmons spoke highly of Pritzker’s nomination, saying she “brings to the table an extensive business background and understands what it takes for businesses to create jobs.” Timmons added that she “comes from a family with a rich history in manufacturing” and has “partnered with manufacturers on important initiatives to address our nation’s critical need for skilled workers and understands the severity of the skills gap.” One of Pritzker’s late uncles served as chairman of the National Association of Manufacturers.

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