#89 Penny Pritzker

Chairman of the board,
Classic Residence by Hyatt and TransUnion;
billionaire,
U.S. 

STEPHANE FITCH / Forbes 30aug2007

Pritzker is one of the most active of celebrated Chicago patriarch Abraham N. Pritzker's 12 living grandchildren. A Harvard-trained attorney, Pritzker, 46, was chosen by her late uncle Jay to help oversee the family's vast portfolio of investments, including the Hyatt hotel chain and the Marmon Group industrial conglomerate. The $16.4 billion fortune has since been slated for a carve-up and will eventually include IPOs or outright sales of various Pritzker companies and assets. For now, Penny focuses on real estate investments, developing senior living facilities under the Hyatt Classic Residence name and office properties through a venture with Chicago-based Higgins Development Partners. The 49-story Hyatt Center skyscraper in Chicago's Loop, which she pushed in 2002, opened on July 19, 2005.

The 100 Most Powerful Women

Published sources include the women's official biographies, Factiva, International Who's Who of 2005, Marquis Who's Who, World Almanac of Famous People, Palgrave Who's Who 2005, the Congressional Yellow Book, the Judicial Yellow Book, Europa World Year Book, Hoover's Online, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings, World Economic Forum, the World Book Encyclopedia. Rankings generated by combining various financial figures with other media and biography metrics; global media mentions from Factiva.

—Stephane Fitch

source: 21feb2008

From Wikipedia

Penny Sue Pritzker (1959) is an American billionaire (net worth $2.8 billion USD), the granddaughter of Abram Nicholas Pritzker and the niece of Jay Pritzker.

She attended Castilleja School until 1977. In 1981 she received a BA in Economics from Harvard University later earning a JD and MBA from Stanford University. Penny lives in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago with her two teenage children and her husband, Dr. Bryan Traubert.

She is ranked 135th on the 2007 Forbes list of richest Americans. She has sat on Harvard's Board of Overseers since 2002, and is active in numerous philanthropic and civic endeavors, including Chicago's Millennium Park. She has also developed a Chicago skyscraper, been president of commercial and residential real estate firms, and served as chairman for a major credit-reporting company. Currently, she is the national finance chairwoman of Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

source: 21feb2008