Ivanka Trump

Ivana Marie "Ivanka" Trump ( iv-AHNG-kə; born October 30, 1981) is an American businesswoman. She is the second child of U.S. President Donald Trump and his first wife, Ivana Trump. Ivanka was a presidential advisor in her father's first administration (2017–2021), and also the director of the Office of Economic Initiatives and Entrepreneurship.

Born and raised in Manhattan, Trump attended the Chapin School and later Choate Rosemary Hall. She pursued higher education at Georgetown University before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania, where she graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in economics in 2004.

Trump converted to Judaism prior to marrying Jared Kushner, a real estate developer, in 2009. The couple has three children. Prior to her political career, she was an executive vice president of her family-owned Trump Organization and also a boardroom judge on her father's television show, The Apprentice. She also had a fashion lifestyle brand under her own name that consisted of apparel, footwear, handbags, jewelry, and fragrance. Trump shut down the company in July 2018.

In January 2017, Trump became an unofficial advisor in her father's first presidential administration alongside her husband. In March that year, she became an official employee in his administration. While serving in the White House, she continued to retain ownership of businesses. This raised ethics concerns, specifically conflicts of interest.

Early life and education

Ivana Marie Trump was born on October 30, 1981, in Manhattan, New York City, as the second child of Donald Trump and his first wife, the Czech-American model Ivana (née Zelníčková). For most of her life, she has been nicknamed "Ivanka", a Slavic diminutive form of her first name Ivana. Trump's parents divorced in 1990 when she was nine years old. She has two full brothers, Donald Jr. and Eric, a half-sister, Tiffany, and a half-brother, Barron.

Trump attended Christ Church and the Chapin School in Manhattan until switching to Choate Rosemary Hall at age 15 in Wallingford, Connecticut. While attending boarding school as a teenager, she also began modeling "on weekends and holidays and absolutely not during the school year", according to her late mother, Ivana. In May 1997, she was featured on the cover of Seventeen as well as in campaigns for Tommy Hilfiger, Thierry Mugler, and Versace.

After graduating from Choate in 2000, Trump attended Georgetown University for two years before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania, from which she graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in economics in 2004.

Career

Business

After graduating from Wharton, Trump briefly worked for the real estate firm Forest City Ratner. As executive vice president of development and acquisitions of the Trump Organization, she was responsible for the domestic and global expansion of the company's real estate interests. Trump led the request for proposal (RFP) with the General Services Administration in February 2012, resulting in the final selection of the Trump Organization to develop the historic Old Post Office in Washington, D.C. She then oversaw the $200-million conversion of the building into a luxury hotel, which opened in 2016. Trump also led the acquisition and redevelopment of the Doral Hotel, a 700-room resort, in Miami.

Independent of her family's real estate business, Trump also had her own line of Ivanka Trump fashion items, which included clothes, handbags, shoes, and accessories, available in U.S. and Canadian department stores including Macy's and Hudson's Bay.

Trump formed a partnership with Dynamic Diamond Corp. in 2007 to create Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry, a line of diamond and gold jewelry sold at her first flagship retail store in Manhattan. She later began selling jewelry online through her brand’s website, which was relaunched in August 2010. Her flagship moved from Madison Avenue to 109 Mercer Street, a larger space in the SoHo district, in November 2011. Celebrities were spotted wearing her jewelry including Jennifer Lopez on the cover of Glamour and Rihanna on the cover of W magazine. Her brand was named "Launch of the Year" in 2010 by Footwear News. Trump's industry recognitions include the Breakthrough Award at the Accessories Council Excellence Awards presented by designer Carolina Herrera in 2015. Her collection was covered in magazines such as Harper's Bazaar, Forbes Life, Golf Magazine, Town & Country, and Vogue. Trump has been featured prominently in profiles in publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Vogue, Elle, Harper's Bazaar, Forbes, Fortune, Marie Claire, and Glamour. Members of 100 Women in Hedge Funds selected Trump to their board in December 2012.

Between 2010 and 2018, Trump worked as a paid consultant for The Trump Organization while maintaining a separate status from formal employment. She stepped away from these roles upon becoming a senior advisor in the White House. In 2012, she was named to the board of 100 Women in Hedge Funds. Her fashion brand, which included apparel and accessories, was sold in various retailers and earned her a Breakthrough Award from the Accessories Council in 2015. The brand was later involved in a legal dispute that was settled out of court.

Between 2016 and 2017, Trump applied for numerous trademarks in China, with several approved around the time of President Xi Jinping’s 2017 visit to the U.S. A Chinese official stated the applications were processed according to standard procedures, and a trademark lawyer noted the timeline was not unusual. That same year, she partnered with the World Bank to support a fund for female entrepreneurs.

In 2018, Trump closed her fashion brand to focus on public policy, following declining sales and increased scrutiny of overseas manufacturing practices.

After leaving government service, Trump and Kushner partnered with the latter's firm Affinity Partners on a $1.4 billion redevelopment of Sazan Island in Albania, which locals often refer to as "Trump Island." In 2023, she co-founded Planet Harvest, a company focused on tackling food waste by redirecting surplus produce and creating consumer goods from excess crops.

Television

Trump filled in for the businesswoman Carolyn Kepcher on five episodes of the fifth season of her father's television program The Apprentice, first appearing to help judge the Gillette task in week 2. Like Kepcher, Trump visited the site of the tasks and spoke to the teams. Trump collaborated with season 5 winner Sean Yazbeck on his winner's project of choice, Trump SoHo Hotel-Condominium. She replaced Kepcher as a primary boardroom judge during the sixth season of The Apprentice and its follow-up iteration, Celebrity Apprentice.

In 1997, at the age of 15, Trump co-hosted the Miss Teen USA Pageant, which was partially owned by her father, Donald Trump, from 1996 to 2005. In 2006, she was a guest judge on Project Runway's third season. She reappeared as a guest judge on season 4 of Project Runway All Stars in 2014 and 2015. In 2010, Trump and her husband made a cameo portraying themselves in Season 4, Episode 6 of Gossip Girl.

Modeling

While Trump was attending boarding school as a teenager, she also began modeling "on weekends and holidays and absolutely not during the school year", according to her mother Ivana Trump. She was featured in advertisements for Tommy Hilfiger, Elle, Vogue, Teen Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and Thierry Mugler, She also engaged in fashion runway work. In May 1997, she was featured on the cover of Seventeen. Trump has been profiled in many women's fashion magazines, including Vogue, Glamour, Marie Claire, and Elle. She was featured on covers such as Harper's Bazaar, Forbes, Forbes Life, Marie Claire, Golf Digest, Town & Country, Elle Décor, Shape, and Stuff magazine. Trump was featured in Vanity Fair's annual International Best Dressed Hall of Fame List in 2007 and 2008.

Books

The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life

In October 2009, Trump's first self-help book, The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life, was published; according to the ghostwriter Daniel Paisner, he co-wrote the book.

Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success

In May 2017, her second self-help book, Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success, was published; it is a self-improvement book for women in business, which featured contributions from business and leadership experts such as Adam Grant, Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin, Simon Sinek, and Stephen Covey. She donated $200,000 in royalties to the National Urban League and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. Half the advance of the book was also donated to fund a Women's Entrepreneur Center at the National Urban League in Baltimore, Maryland, after visiting the facility with Marc Morial, President of the National Urban League.

The book was part of Trump's associated marketing campaign also titled "Women Who Work". It received mixed reviews from critics.