Penny Pritzker

Penny Pritzker was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1959. Her grandfather built the family fortune through real estate and business investments, and her father was a co-founder of the Hyatt hotel chain.⁠[1]

She met Barack Obama in Chicago in the late 1990s and raised money for his U.S. Senate campaign; in 2008 she served as national finance chair of his presidential campaign. After his election she was appointed to the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.⁠[1]

From 2002 to 2008 Pritzker served on Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private research university in Massachusetts, established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature in 1636 and named in 1639 for early benefactor John Harvard. Its principal campuses are in Cambridge and the Allston and Longwood neighborhoods of Boston. It includes Harvard College, graduate and professional schools, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Two governing boards share oversight. Alan M. Garber was president as of October 2026, and the endowment stood at $56.9 billion at the end of fiscal 2025.Open the full entry’s Board of Overseers, and she has served on the visiting committees for the Harvard Art Museums, Harvard College, the Graduate School of Design and the Graduate School of Education.⁠[2]

In 2013 Pritzker was nominated as U.S. Secretary of Commerce and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in June of that year. On June 26, 2013, she was sworn in by Vice President Joe Biden as the 38th U.S. Secretary of Commerce, serving until January 2017.⁠[1][3][4]

As secretary she led the department’s five-pillar strategic plan known as the “Open for Business Agenda” and chaired the Presidential Ambassadors for Global Entrepreneurship (PAGE) program. In 2015 she received the inaugural “Commercial Diplomat of the Year Award.”⁠[3]

In April 2016, as U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Pritzker spoke with Ted Ullyot, head of policy and regulatory affairs at Andreessen HorowitzAndreessen HorowitzAndreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. It invests from the seed stage through the growth stage and provides operational support to its portfolio companies.Open the full entry (a16z), at a16z’s inaugural “Silicon Valley comes to Washington, D.C.” event; the recording was released on the a16z website on May 27, 2016, under the title “a16z Podcast: Trade, Commerce, Manufacturing, Immigration, & Cuba — with Penny Pritzker.”⁠[5]

The conversation covered the department’s “commercial diplomacy” abroad and its work helping small and medium-sized businesses overcome trade barriers, how other countries view U.S. technology companies, immigration and visas, the EU Safe Harbor framework and its successor Privacy Shield, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and intellectual property, U.S. engagement policy toward Cuba, and advanced manufacturing, data gathering and counting the gig economy in GDP.⁠[5][6]

The episode was uploaded to the a16z YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry channel on January 1, 2019.⁠[6]

In November 2017 Pritzker became an independent director on the board of Microsoft.⁠[7]

Pritzker joined the Harvard Corporation, Harvard University’s senior governing board, in 2018. In February 2022 Harvard announced that she had been elected the Corporation’s next senior fellow, succeeding William F. Lee, who had held the post since 2014, effective July 1, 2022; she is the first woman to hold the position.⁠[2]

Pritzker Commons, a space in Harvard’s Science Center made possible by her and named for her parents, opened in 2017.⁠[2]

On September 14, 2023, U.S. President Joe Biden announced Pritzker’s appointment as U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine’s Economic Recovery, responsible for driving U.S. efforts to help rebuild Ukraine’s economy, including mobilizing public and private investment, coordinating with other international partners through the G7 coordination platform, and advising the Ukrainian government on economic reforms.⁠[8]

Biden wrote in the statement: “I am appointing Penny Pritzker to serve as the new U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine’s Economic Recovery.”⁠[8]

Pritzker graduated from Harvard University in 1981 with a bachelor’s degree in economics, and later earned a Juris Doctor (J.D.) and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityStanford University is a research university in California founded by Leland and Jane Stanford in 1885 and opened in 1891.Open the full entry.⁠[2][4]

Pritzker is the founder and chairman of PSP Partners and its affiliates Pritzker Realty Group, PSP Capital and PSP Growth. She has founded or co-founded six businesses, including Vi Senior Living (formerly Classic Residence by Hyatt), The Parking Spot, Artemis Real Estate Partners, Inspired Capital Partners and PSP Partners.⁠[4]

She has served as executive chairman of TransUnion and as a director of Hyatt Hotels Corporation, the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, the Marmon Group and LaSalle Bank Corporation; she also serves on the boards of DEPT and Icertis.⁠[4]

Pritzker founded and chaired the advisory board of Skills for America’s Future and helped launch Skills for Chicagoland’s Future in 2012; she is a past chair of the Chicago Public Education Fund and a former member of the Chicago Board of Education.⁠[3]

With her husband, Bryan Traubert, she co-founded the Pritzker Traubert Foundation, which works to expand economic opportunity for families in Chicago. She has chaired the board of trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, co-founded and chaired P33, a Chicago civic technology organization, and served as a director of the Council on Foreign RelationsCouncil on Foreign RelationsThe Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is a nonpartisan, independent U.S. membership organization and think tank founded in 1921 and based in New York, which has published Foreign Affairs since 1922 and takes no institutional positions on policy; Michael Froman has been its 15th president since 2023.Open the full entry and a trustee of Stanford University; she is a member of the Obama Foundation board, co-chair of the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum Advisory Council, and a member of the Aspen Strategy Group and the Aspen Economic Strategy Group.⁠[4]

PSP Partners: Official website: https://www.pspcapital.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[4]