As beautiful as she is competitive, Ivanka is the vice president of real estate development and acquisitions for The Trump Organization. But she prefers not to be saddled with a title. “I report to dad,” she says simply. “It’s informal, we’re like a mom-and-pop organization. I give him the status of my projects. He is very demanding, but OK to work for.”
“The Donald” has so much confidence in his 27-year-old, Wharton School of Finance-educated daughter, that he has involved her in 33 national and international real estate projects after only three years working at The Trump Organization. “Ivanka has done a terrific job with our numerous projects around the globe,” says Trump. “She is a dynamo who gets things done.”
She first gained valuable experience while working as a project manager in the $1.1 million retail development division of Forest City Ratner Companies in Westchester, NY. During her one-year stay, she coordinated tenants and learned about the day-to-day travails of the real estate business through developer
Bruce Ratner.
Having been exposed to all aspects abc8.toys of real estate development, from pre-planning, evaluating and analysis, to construction, marketing, operations, sales and leasing, she was ahead of the game. Today, she works side by side with her dad and older brother, Donald Jr.
“We work very closely together, and we pretty much think alike,” says Donald. “We look at things very much the same way … the way our father likes to look at business deals. We were raised with a strong work ethic from both of our parents,” he adds.
Ivanka has indeed inherited that family trait. Her mom, Ivana, once ran the Trump Castle (now Trump Marina) in Atlantic City by flying there nearly every day, and the Plaza Hotel in New York City, that Trump bought in 1988, for $407.5 million when Ivanka was a little girl. Today, Ivanka follows in her mother’s footsteps. “I spend most of my time travelling to our projects around the world,” says Ivanka. Her responsibilities are vast, including the expansion of the Trump brand into hotel creation, to go along with the residential developments, golf clubs and casinos. “We hadn’t really expanded that much into hotels so now we are doing it,” she explains. “We are great builders, so why should we, or anyone else, stay in another hotel? When we own our own, we can control service.”
Ivanka loves travelling to Chicago to work on the nearly $900 million Trump International Hotel and Tower, a 92-story, 2.6 million-sq.-ft. property on the Chicago River. “This is the tallest building constructed in Chicago since the Sears Tower,” she boasts, sounding like a chip off the old block. “I love going there and spending time working with the people. Chicago is such a great city.”