Is Obama Ready for a Billionaire in His Cabinet?
By: 
Penny Pritzker has always been comfortable wearing many hats: CEO, mom, entrepreneur, arts patron and major fundraiser for Barack Obama.
But there is one title that she accepts only reluctantly: "billionaire."
"She really doesn't like when people call her that – especially in the media," said one of Pritzker's friends. "It's the B-word for her."
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The question now is whether Pritzker's billionaire status will also sit well with the White House. News reports say Pritzker is leading the race for commerce secretary. If chosen, she would be the far and away the wealthiest member of Obama Cabinet – and one of the richest presidential Cabinet members in history.
Forbes puts Pritzker's wealth – which stems from the Hyatt hotel chain and other assets – at $1.8 billion. Yet the family's offshore accounts and complex holding structures make it difficult to truly determine her wealth. The Pritzker family has sold off many of its assets to settle a family financial battle and took Hyatt public in 2009. She founded Classic Residence by Hyatt and was chairman of Parking Spot – which owns parking properties – which was sold to a private-equity firm in 2011 for $360 million.
Pritzker has known the president since the early 1990s, when her son and daughter played in a summer basketball league in Chicago coached by Michelle Obama's brother. She was Obama's finance chair in 2008, helping him raise hundreds of millions of dollars in part from wealthy donors (she was less involved in the 2012 campaign). After Obama was elected, she helped lead White House Skills for America's Future initiative, which seeks to better match worker skills with jobs.
Advisors say Pritzker's closeness with the president will serve her and the Commerce Department well.
"There's no question that she's trusted by the president and she's given very good input and advice in whatever she's been asked to do," said Austan Goolsbee, the former chairman of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers. He added that if she's appointed, Pritzker will also help dampen criticism that the Obama White House lacks private sector expertise.
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Yet Pritzker has faced criticism from unions and other groups critical of her family's businesses. And it remains to be seen whether someone of such great wealth and varied businesses can hold sway in a White House with few former CEOs or business leaders. The president attacked Mitt Romney repeatedly in the 2012 campaign for his wealth and overseas accounts.
UNITE HERE, a union representing hotel workers, called for a boycott of Hyatt hotels last year over workplace conditions. Pritzker also faced criticism in the past over Superior Bank, a failed bank that was partly owned by the family and which had to pay a $460 million to regulators as part of a settlement over subprime lending.
These criticisms helped scuttle Pritzker's bid to become commerce secretary in 2008, though people close to Pritzker say this time is different.
"I think those issues are behind us," said one of Pritzker's friends. "It's really a different climate now."
