Jay Robert "J. B." Pritzker (born January 19, 1965) is an American politician and venture capitalist, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and private business owner based in Chicago. He is managing partner and co-founder of the Pritzker Group. He is a member of the Pritzker family who are known in business for the Hyatt Hotel chain, and has an estimated personal net worth of $3.4 billion.
He is a candidate in the Democratic Party primary for Governor of Illinois in the 2018 election.
Video J. B. Pritzker
Early life and education
J.B. Pritzker was born into a Jewish family prominent in business and philanthropy during the late 20th century. The Pritzkers are one of the wealthiest families in the United States, being near the top of Forbes magazine's "America's Richest Families" list since the magazine began listings in 1982. One of three children of Sue (née Sandel) and Donald Pritzker, J.B. had his Bar Mitzvah at Congregation Beth Am. He attended Massachusetts boarding school Milton Academy and then graduated from Duke University with a B.A. degree in political science. Pritzker went on to earn his J.D. degree from Northwestern University School of Law. He is an attorney and a member of the Illinois State Bar Association and Chicago Bar Association.
Maps J. B. Pritzker
Career
In 1996, J.B. Pritzker founded Pritzker Group Venture Capital (formerly New World Ventures), the largest venture investor based in the Midwest. The firm invests nationally in rapidly growing technology companies at all stages of their growth, with a principal focus on enterprise software, e-commerce and managed services. The firm has invested in more than 100 companies, including Fleetmatics (NYSE:FLTX), SinglePlatform (acquired by Constant Contact), Chegg (NYSE:CHGG), Awesomeness TV (acquired by DreamWorks), Playdom (acquired by Disney), Lefthand Networks (acquired by Hewlett-Packard), and TicketsNow (acquired by Ticketmaster).
Pritzker served as Chairman of ChicagoNEXT, Mayor Rahm Emanuel's council on innovation and technology, and he founded 1871, (named for the year of the Great Fire of Chicago), Chicago's digital startup center. He played an important role in the creation of the Illinois Venture Capital Association and the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center. He also co-founded Chicago Ventures and funded the startup of Techstars Chicago and Built in Chicago. Pritzker has received numerous awards and community recognition for his efforts to build a stronger technology sector in the Midwest.
Together with his brother Tony, J.B. Pritzker co-founded Pritzker Group Private Capital, which owns and operates middle-market companies. The group includes a growing family of companies including pallet rental leader PECO Pallet and medical device maker Clinical Innovations.
In 2008, Pritzker received the Entrepreneurial Champion Award from the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce for his efforts to promote economic development and job creation.
Political activities
In the 2008 Presidential election, Pritzker served as national co-chairman of the Hillary Clinton for President campaign and as a delegate to the 2008 Democratic National Convention and the 2016 Democratic National Convention. He supported President Barack Obama in the 2008 general election and helped bring the Clinton and Obama campaigns in Illinois together.
Pritzker founded Democratic Leadership for the 21st Century, a national organization dedicated to attracting voters under the age of 40 to the Democratic Party. He also served on the Washington DC legislative staffs of U.S. Senator Terry Sanford (D-NC), U.S. Senator Alan J. Dixon (D-IL) and U.S. Congressman Tom Lantos (D-CA), for whom he handled multiple domestic and international issues.
In 1998, he ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in Illinois's 9th congressional district, spending a half million dollars from his personal fortune on television ads in the Chicago market. Pritzker finished last among three candidates in the Democratic primary, receiving 20.48% of the vote, to then State Representative Jan Schakowsky's 45.14% and State Senator Howard W. Carroll's 34.40%.
2018 campaign for governor
In April 2017, Pritzker announced he was running for the Democratic nomination for governor of Illinois. His campaign has received the endorsements of Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, Illinois Congressman Luis Gutierrez, former Illinois Congressman Glenn Poshard, more than a dozen members of the Illinois General Assembly, 21 local labor unions and the Illinois AFL-CIO.
On August 10, 2017, Pritzker announced that his running mate will be State Representative Juliana Stratton.
By December 2017, Pritzker had spent $42 million of his own wealth on his campaign, without significant fundraising from any other source.
Controversies
Use of obscure LLC to donate to Michael Madigan
On February 2, 2018, IllinoisHomepage.net detailed Pritzker's initial donations following the 2016 election cycle. It is noted that Pritzker donates exclusively to Democrats using his own name to make contributions, but in this situation, Pritzker funneled two maximum corporate contributions each for $10,800 to Michael Madigan's political campaign and to the Democratic Party of Illinois, along with another one of Pritzker's firms, Stateline LLC, for a $5,400 contribution to Madigan's Democratic Majority fund at the same time.
"That just happens to be where there was money available to give," Pritzker explained on Wednesday. He and his wife gave another $27,000 in political contributions during that same month under their own names. "As you know, the laws are you either give individually or you give through an organization that is made up of individuals and I am the only individual involved in that organization," Pritzker said.
Cash-out of Hyatt Ownership using shell companies
In January 2018, IllinoisHomepage.net broke a story detailing how Pritzker sold off shares of Hyatt stock on three different occasions: selling off 250,000 shares of Hyatt stock ($51.10 per share for a net of $12,775,000) two days after the defeat of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, selling 2,000,000 shares of Hyatt Hotels Corp on November 30th, 2016 ($50.80 per share for a net of $101,600,000), and on December 9th, 2016 selling 780,571 shares ($55.49 shares for a net of $43,313,884.80). Pritzker personally signed off on the documents that show he used shell companies established in South Dakota and Nevada to complete the multi-million dollar transactions. Pritzker did not list PG Alma Trust (SD), Posterity PT Group (NV) or CIBC Trust Company (Bahamas) in financial disclosure forms submitted to the Illinois State Board of Elections. The Pritzker campaign says it disclosed the identity of all "underlying assets in any entity in which J.B. Pritzker personally had an ownership or constructively controlled interest during the reporting period," but not the companies or trusts which controlled those assets. Pritzker resigned from Posterity PT Group in late 2016, right before declaring his intention to run for governor.
Rod Blagojevich FBI wiretap
In May 2017, the Chicago Tribune released an 11-minute FBI wiretap of J.B. Pritzker and then-Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich in 2008 discussing campaign contributions and options for Pritzker to be appointed to statewide office. At the time, Pritzker was described as a "businessman with political ambitions." On the tapes, Blagojevich asked Pritzker if he would like to be appointed state treasurer, to which Pritzker responded, "Yeah, that's the one I would want." The tapes have raised questions of "pay to play politics," with both Republicans and Democrats, including incumbent GOP Governor Bruce Rauner and Pritzker's Democratic primary opponents, taking issue with Pritzker's conduct. Pritzker has responded to the allegations by stating that "I've not been accused of any wrongdoing. I have not done anything wrong." No allegations of wrongdoing were ever made by law enforcement against Pritzker, and Pritzker has said, "over decades of my life, I have been doing public service, and the opportunity to continue to do public service as treasurer of the state was something that had been brought up, and so there was a conversation about that."
Personal life
In 1993, he married Mary Kathryn "M. K." Muenster of South Dakota whom he had met in Washington, D.C when she worked as an aide to Senator Thomas Daschle of South Dakota. She is one of three children of Theodore and Karen Muenster. Her father unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 1990. They live in Chicago with their two children.
Pritzker has two elder siblings: Penny Pritzker (born 1959), who served as 38th United States Secretary of Commerce, and Anthony Pritzker (born 1961).
Philanthropy
As president of the Pritzker Family Foundation, he funds innovative research and programs serving children in poverty. Under the leadership of Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman, he supported the creation of the Pritzker Consortium on Early Childhood Development at the University of Chicago. Along with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Buffett Early Childhood Fund, the Irving Harris Foundation and the George Kaiser Family Foundation, the Pritzker Family Foundation is a founding supporter of the First Five Years Fund, an organization focusing nationwide attention and resources on comprehensive, quality early care and learning programs for children from birth to age five. In 2013, Pritzker teamed with Goldman Sachs to fund the first ever social impact bond for early childhood education.
As chairman of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, which opened in 2009, Pritzker successfully led the capital campaign and planning to build an international institution in the Midwest dedicated to teaching the lessons of the Holocaust and other genocides. Pritzker is the principal funder of Cambodia Tribunal Monitor, the most significant online source for news and commentaries regarding the international criminal tribunal created to bring to justice the perpetrators of Pol Pot era acts of genocide. He served as chairman of the Illinois Human Rights Commission, and was succeeded by former White House counsel and Federal Judge Abner J. Mikva. In 2013, Pritzker received the Survivors' Legacy Award for his leadership in the creation of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.
In 2007, Pritzker and his wife donated $5 million to the University of South Dakota to build the Theodore R. and Karen K. Muenster University Center in honor of his wife's parents. In 2011, Milton Academy dedicated the Pritzker Science Center for which Pritzker provided the lead gift. Pritzker is a trustee and serves on the investment committee of Northwestern University and is a member of the Board of Governors of Northwestern University School of Law. He is a member of the Economic Club of Chicago and the Commercial Club of Chicago.
On October 22, 2015, Northwestern University School of Law announced that J. B. Pritzker and his wife, M. K. Pritzker, had made a $100 million gift to the law school in honor of Pritzker's great-grandfather, Nicholas J. Pritzker. The 156-year-old school became named the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.
He received the Spirit of Erikson Institute Award for his creation of the Children's Initiative.
The Better Government Association, an Illinois watchdog, has criticized Pritzker's charitable giving practices, saying he funneled the funds offshore tax havens. "The result is that Pritzker's philanthropy, and any accolades that go with it, have been bankrolled with what is essentially found money. He did little to earn the proceeds and paid no taxes on the bulk of it before giving it away," the BGA article states.
References
External links
- Official website
Source of article : Wikipedia
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