Penny Pritzker, the Hyatt hotel heiress, entrepreneur and national financial chair of President-elect Barack Obama’s successful campaign, is speculated to be a front-runner for Secretary of Commerce in Obama’s administration.
Pritzker’s family ties to Aspen stretch back for decades, and her sister Margot is a member of the board of trustees at the Aspen Institute, where Penny participated in the annual Ideas Festival last year.
Who Obama will select to run the Commerce Department is drawing an unusually high amount of attention during this transition period, as he or she is likely to face the stiffest challenges for American business interests since Daniel Calhoun Roper took the cabinet post in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first term during the Great Depression.
Among the most successful women in American business, Pritzker’s fundraising haul for Obama broke election records by taking in roughly $650 million in donations, dwarfing Republican John McCain’s rake and allowing Obama to run more advertising and open more campaign offices across the country — including 51 across Colorado and one in Glenwood Springs.
The Chicago-based Pritzker worked with Jim Crown, owner of the Aspen Skiing Co. and co-chair of Obama’s Illinois fundraising effort, on raising cash in their — and the president-elect’s — home state.
Obama has already this week selected Congressman Rahm Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff, his campaign’s chief strategist David Axelrod as senior adviser, and campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs as White House press secretary. Emanuel and Axelrod are both Chicagoans, like Pritzker and Obama.
Earlier this year, Pritzker and the Obama campaign responded to criticism of her role running a Chicago bank in the early 1990’s that later collapsed in 2001, and took part in subprime mortgage lending.
While the president-elect has stayed mum on who will fill the Commerce post, news organizations worldwide have raised Pritzker as a likely choice.
A story on Newsweek.com, for example, stated yesterday that Pritzker, 49, “seems to have the inside track for the head job at Commerce.”
Other names raised for the cabinet post include former California congressman and Bill Clinton chief of staff Leon Panetta, Time Warner chairman Richard Parsons, and economist Laura Tyson, who has been an advisor to Obama during the campaign and also served in the Clinton White House.
Pritzker’s wide-ranging business and civic achievements include starting Classic Residences by Hyatt, a successful luxury retirement development, working to improve public schools and serving as CEO of Pritzker Realty Group. Earlier this year, Forbes ranked her among the 500 wealthiest people in the world.
andrew@aspendailynews.com
