Penny Pritzker was appointed by President Biden to serve as the Special Representative for Ukraine Recovery and Reconstruction.. From June 2013 through January 2017, she served as U.S. Secretary of Commerce in the Obama Administration.
Ms. Pritzker is an entrepreneur, civic leader, and philanthropist, with more than 30 years of experience in numerous industries. She is the founder and Chairman of PSP Partners, a diversified investment firm based in Chicago
In July of 2022, Ms. Pritzker was elected as the Senior Fellow of the Harvard Corporation and is the first woman to hold the position. Ms. Pritzker has been a member of the Harvard Corporation, the main governing board for the University, since 2018.. Ms. Pritzker also served as chairman of the board of trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, co-founder and board chair of Chicago-based civic-tech organization P33, and chair of the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum Advisory Council. In addition to those roles, Ms. Pritzker is a member of the Aspen Strategy Group and the Aspen Economic Strategy Group.
Over the course of her career, Ms. Pritzker has launched a number of businesses across a variety of sectors and is the former executive chairman of the board of TransUnion and a past board member of Hyatt Hotels Corporation, Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, Marmon Group, and LaSalle Bank Corporation.
Ms. Pritzker was formerly a member of President Biden’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, the board of the Council on Foreign Relations, the board of trustees of Stanford University, the Harvard University Board of Overseers, was co-chair of the Cyber Readiness Institute and founded Skills for America’s Future. Ms. Pritzker also served on President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness and his Economic Recovery Advisory Board.
Ms. Pritzker earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Harvard University and a Juris Doctor and Master of Business Administration from Stanford University. Ms. Pritzker and her husband, Dr. Bryan Traubert, co-founded the Pritzker Traubert Foundation, a private philanthropic foundation that works to foster increased economic opportunity for Chicago’s families.