Karen L. Pritzker (born 1958) is a documentary film producer, investor, and philanthropist. She is a member of the

Pritzker family The Pritzker family is an American family engaged in entrepreneurship and philanthropy, and List of wealthiest families, one of the wealthiest families in the United States of America (staying in the top 10 of ''Forbes'' magazine's "America's Riche ...

, the granddaughter of A.N. Pritzker and daughter of

Robert Pritzker Robert Alan 'Bob' Pritzker (June 30, 1926 – October 27, 2011) was an American businessman and member of the wealthy Pritzker family. Biography Pritzker was born to a Jewish family, the Pritzker family,Forbes: The World's Billionaires - Karen Pritzker
September 2020

Biography

Pritzker was born in Oberlin,

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, the daughter of Audrey (née Gilbert) and Robert Pritzker.CNN Money: "THE PRITZKERS UNVEILING A PRIVATE FAMILY" By Ford S. Worthy
April 25, 1988 She has two full siblings:

Jennifer N. Pritzker Jennifer Natalya Pritzker (born James Nicholas Pritzker; August 13, 1950) is an American investor, philanthropist, and member of the Pritzker family. Pritzker retired as a lieutenant colonel from the Illinois Army National Guard (ILARNG) in 200 ...

(b. 1950), a retired Lt Colonel in the Illinois State National Guard and founder of the

Pritzker Military Library The Pritzker Military Museum & Library (formerly Pritzker Military Library) is a non-profit museum and a research library for the study of military history on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. The institution was founded in 2003, and its spe ...

,Pritzker Military Library website: "Colonel (IL) J. N. Pritzker, IL ARNG (Retired)"
retrieved December 21, 2012 and

Linda Pritzker Linda Pritzker (born September 1953) also known by the name Lama Tsomo is an American lama in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. She is a spiritual teacher, author, philanthropist, and co-founder of the Namchak Foundation and Namchak Retreat Ranch ...

(b. 1953), an American lama in the

Tibetan Buddhist Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...

tradition. Her parents divorced in 1979. In 1981, her mother remarried Albert B. Ratner, the co-chairman of Cleveland-based real estate developer

Forest City Enterprises Forest City Realty Trust, Inc. was a real estate investment trust that invested in office buildings, shopping centers and apartments in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and the greater metropolitan areas of New York ...

.Yale University: "Slow readers, creative thinkers: gift will spur dyslexia studies - New center will explore links between reading problems, creativity"
retrieved December 21, 2012Encyclopedia of Cleveland History: "Biography of the Ratner Family"
retrieved December 21, 2012 In 1980, her father remarried Irene Dryburgh with whom he had two children, her half siblings: Matthew Pritzker and

Liesel Pritzker Simmons Liesel Pritzker Simmons (born Liesel Anne Pritzker), stage name Liesel Matthews, is an American heiress and former child actress. She starred as Sara Crewe in '' A Little Princess'', a 1995 film adaptation of the Frances Hodgson Burnett classic, ...

. Her father diversified the Chicago-based family business, the

Marmon Group Marmon Group is an American industrial holding company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois; founded by Jay Pritzker and Robert Pritzker in 1953 (as Colson Corporation), it has been held by the Berkshire Hathaway group since 2013. It owns companies ...

- along with his brothers

Jay Pritzker Jay Arthur Pritzker (August 26, 1922 – January 23, 1999) was an American entrepreneur, conglomerate organizer, and member of the Pritzker family. Early life and education Pritzker was born in Chicago, Illinois to Jewish parents who emi ...

and

Donald Pritzker Donald Nicholas Pritzker (October 31, 1932 – May 6, 1972) was an American entrepreneur, businessman. He is a member of the Pritzker family and served as the president of Hyatt, where he helped grow the hotel chain. He is the father of ...

- building it into a portfolio of over 60 diversified industrial corporations. They also created the

Hyatt Hotel Hyatt Hotels Corporation, commonly known as Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, is an American multinational hospitality company headquartered in the Riverside Plaza area of Chicago that manages and franchises luxury and business hotels, resorts, and vacat ...

chain in 1957 and owned

Braniff Airlines Braniff Airways, Inc., operated as Braniff International Airways from 1948 until 1965, and then Braniff International from 1965 until air operations ceased, was an airline in the United States that once flew air carrier operations from 1928 un ...

from 1983–1988. The family has been divesting its assets: in 2006, the family sold Conwood, a smokeless tobacco company, for $3.5 billion to cigarette company

Reynolds American Reynolds American, Inc. is an American tobacco company which is a subsidiary of British American Tobacco and is the second-largest tobacco company in the United States. Its holdings include R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, American Snuff Company ( ...

Inc;Chicago Tribune: "Pritzker family could soon own less than half of Hyatt" By Julie Wernau
April 19, 2011 in 2007, the family sold control of the Marmon Group to

Warren Buffett Warren Edward Buffett ( ; born August 30, 1930) is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is currently the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He is one of the most successful investors in the world and has a net w ...

Berkshire Hathaway Berkshire Hathaway Inc. () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, United States. Its main business and source of capital is insurance, from ...

for $4.5 billion; and in 2010, the family sold its majority stake in

Transunion TransUnion is an American consumer credit reporting agency. TransUnion collects and aggregates information on over one billion individual consumers in over thirty countries including "200 million files profiling nearly every credit-active consum ...

, the Chicago-based credit reporting company, for an undisclosed amount to Chicago-based private-equity firm

Madison Dearborn Partners Madison Dearborn Partners (MDP) is an American private equity firm specializing in leveraged buyouts of privately held or publicly traded companies, or divisions of larger companies; recapitalizations of family-owned or closely held companies; ba ...

. Pritzker graduated with a B.A. from

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

. Pritzker worked as an editor at the magazine ''

Working Mother ''Working Mother'' was a magazine for working mothers launched in 1979 by Founding Publisher Milton Lieberman, who was succeeded by Carol Evans . The founding editor of the magazine was Vivian Cadden, who retired as editor in 1990. Subsequent edi ...

'' before the family sold it in 1986 and has written for various publications including ''

Success Success is the state or condition of meeting a defined range of expectations. It may be viewed as the opposite of failure. The criteria for success depend on context, and may be relative to a particular observer or belief system. One person mig ...

'', ''

Seventeen Seventeen or 17 may refer to: *17 (number), the natural number following 16 and preceding 18 * one of the years 17 BC, AD 17, 1917, 2017 Literature Magazines * ''Seventeen'' (American magazine), an American magazine * ''Seventeen'' (Japanese m ...

'', ''

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...

'', and ''

Newsday ''Newsday'' is an American daily newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and f ...

''.The Big Picture documentary website: The Team - Karen Pritzker, Executive Producer
retrieved July 24, 2013 Pritzker invests her wealth through an investment portfolio, the Pritzker/Vlock family office which manages a diverse asset base of emerging biotechnology, medical device companies, consumer technology products, and real estate. Pritzker also operates a venture fund, LaunchCapital LLC with a core focus in the technology, consumer and medical businesses. In 2012, Pritzker co-founded KPJR Films with James Redford. She has since executive-produced three documentary film features: ''The Big Picture: Rethinking Dyslexia'', ''Paper Tigers'', and ''Resilience: The Biology of Stress and The Science of Hope''.

Filmography

Philanthropy

Karen Pritzker serves as president and director of The Seedlings Foundation. The Seedlings Foundation, founded in 2002, has awarded millions of dollars in grants, catalyzing advancements in medical research, social services, job retraining for adults, affordable housing, and online news sites dedicated to local, factual, ad-free reporting. Pritzker and her husband donated $20 million to the Yale University School of Medicine. (including $3 million to endow a professorship); $5 million to Teach for America; $1.5 million to the

Michael J. Fox Foundation The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research is dedicated to finding a cure for Parkinson's disease (PD) established in 2000 by Michael J. Fox. It concentrates on funding research and ensuring the development of improved therapies for ...

for Parkinson's Research, in honor of her father who had

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

. In 2007, Pritzker donated $1 million to build a new visitor center at the

Treblinka Treblinka () was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The camp ...

concentration camp. Karen also funded a new website named ''Truth in Advertising'' (TinA), tina.org, that provides information about incidents of false advertising. She also serves on the board of directors of Grameen America, a nonprofit that offers low-cost microloans to women below the poverty line, as well as Grameen PrimaCare, which provides affordable health care for immigrant women.

The My Hero Project

Pritzker co-founded

The My Hero Project The My Hero Project is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization established in 1995 by philanthropist Karen Pritzker, Jeanne Meyers and Rita Stern Milch that promotes the sharing of positive role models from around the world for the online digital storyt ...

with Rita Stern Milch and Jeanne Meyers in 1995. The purpose of the effort is to "celebrate the best of humanity and empowers young people to realize their own potential to effect positive change in the world".

Personal life

She was married to Michael Vlock and has four children. Her husband died in September 2017. She lives in

Branford, Connecticut Branford is a shoreline New England town, town located on Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut, New Haven County, Connecticut, about east of downtown New Haven, Connecticut, New Haven. The population was 28,273 at the 2020 United Sta ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pritzker, Karen American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent American billionaires Female billionaires Northwestern University alumni

Karen Karen may refer to: * Karen (name), a given name and surname * Karen (slang), a term and meme for a demanding woman displaying certain behaviors People * Karen people, an ethnic group in Myanmar and Thailand ** Karen languages or Karenic l ...

1958 births Living people People from Branford, Connecticut 21st-century American Jews