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 one of the wealthiest families in the United States of America (staying in the top 10 of ''Forbes'' magazine's "America's Richest Families" list since the ...

, 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 (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 Ci ...

.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. Her father diversified the Chicago-based family business, the Marmon Group - along with his brothers Jay Pritzker and Donald Pritzker - building it into a portfolio of over 60 diversified industrial corporations. They also created the Hyatt Hotel chain in 1957 and owned Braniff (1983–1990), Braniff Airlines 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 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's Berkshire Hathaway for $4.5 billion; and in 2010, the family sold its majority stake in Transunion, the Chicago-based credit reporting company, for an undisclosed amount to Chicago-based private-equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners. Pritzker graduated with a B.A. from Northwestern University. Pritzker worked as an editor at the magazine ''Working Mother'' before the family sold it in 1986 and has written for various publications including ''Success (magazine), Success'', ''Seventeen (American magazine), Seventeen'', ''Kirkus Reviews'', and ''Newsday''.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 (filmmaker), 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 for Parkinson's Research, in honor of her father who had Parkinson's disease. In 2007, Pritzker donated $1 million to build a new visitor center at the Treblinka 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 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.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pritzker, Karen American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent American billionaires Female billionaires Northwestern University alumni Pritzker family, Karen 1958 births Living people People from Branford, Connecticut 21st-century American Jews