Ivanka Trump is late for an interview, because a meeting with her father, real estate mogul Donald Trump Sr., lasted an hour longer than planned. “I am really sorry,” Ivanka says, while fending off three more phone calls. “We were closing the financing for three new developments that I am working on, and things came up. We are really busy,” she explains. Well-dressed in sky-high heels, she wears designer clothes from Kay Unger, Zac Posen, Carolina Herrera and Oscar de la Renta, but you won’t see her “dancing on the tables without underwear” as she says, or leaving Mansion in Miami Beach at 5 a.m. She’s usually busy thinking about her next work week.
“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 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.”
So is Las Vegas, with the $600 million, 64-story Trump International Hotel and Tower located on the strip. Even with no casino, she says, the first tower is completely sold out.
Ivanka is also managing the development of new Trump projects on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu (with a library, spa and fitness centre), Atlanta (a pair of residential towers), Jersey City, New Orleans, West Palm Beach (partnering with Florida’s Related Group chairman and CEO Jorge Perez), and a new 44-story Trump SoHo/New York.
Internationally, she flies to Dubai to work on the Trump International Hotel and Tower – with 800 hotel rooms, snazzy stores, super-spa and health club – on Palm Jumeirah Island, the first hotel condo concept in the exotic region. She visits the 2.86 million-sq.-ft. Trump Ocean Club in Panama City, with a hotel casino and residences almost sold out at 500 per cent. She is working on projects in Costa Rica, Tel Aviv, Israel, Toronto, the Dominican Republic, Baja Peninsula, Mexico, including a golf course, hotel and residences in Aberdeen, Scotland. “Dad has an eye for golf,” she laughs, “And it is so beautiful there.”
In her spare time, Ivanka is becoming her own brand. Like the Donald Trump line of suits, bottled water, and vodka, Ivanka Trump will soon become a high-end product name. The Ivanka Trump Boutique recently opened its doors on Madison Ave. in Manhattan. The luxurious store showcases her first project outside of developing Trump properties, a line of diamond jewellery inspired from heirloom pieces circa 1920 – 1960s.
According to Molly Goldfarb, who is helping develop the Ivanka brand, the jewellery collection is contemporary, with modern flair, whimsy and fresh designs. “Ivanka is so bright, and the brand is so fabulous,” she elates. “Everything will have a touch of elegance.”
“My dream for this collection,” says Ivanka, “is that it will appeal to women who have a strong sense of themselves. They know what they like, value exquisite workmanship, and wear even the most important jewellery with a kind of off-handed elegance. They have a sense of tradition, but they like to go their own way. They appreciate quality, but won’t tolerate stuffiness. They have everything, yet they have nothing to prove.”
Like her dad, she has a natural passion for taking the whole project in her hand, and seeing that things are done right from the ground up. No matter how much time she spends at work, she does not complain.
“Ivanka has always had a very strong work ethic and was fascinated by construction,” says her friend Christina Floyd, daughter of U. S. Open golfing champion Raymond Floyd. “When the rest of us were talking about boys, she was talking about buildings.”
Born in New York City and raised mostly in the Trump Penthouse, 40 stories above her current working desk, Ivanka Marie Trump attended the Chapin School on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and high school at Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, Connecticut. While both parents were working madly, Ivanka and her siblings were partially raised by a pair of Irish nannies named Dorothy and Bridget, as well as at least six months a year by Ivana’s cool parents, Milos and Maria Zelnicek, whom the children revered.
Yet Ivanka also spent a great deal of time with both parents by accompanying them to work projects. Trump took her to construction sites and to his office, while he made deals over the phone; Ivana whisked her away to glamorous hotel-casinos in Atlantic City – and of course, to their winter home Mar-a-Lago, the family’s Spanish/Mediterranean-Moorish estate and exclusive private club in Palm Beach, Fla.
When her parents divorced in 1992, and Trump later married Marla Maples (he is now married and has a child with Melania Knauss), there was relentless buzz around the world. Because the Trump children were surrounded by a strong love from both parents and their grandparents, they remained grounded throughout the situation.
“I had a unique aspect in my childhood because of how highly publicized my parents’ divorce became,” Ivanka explains. “It is good to struggle because it definitely made me stronger.”
She remembers walking out of school to photographers waiting to snap pictures of her. “It was horrible,” she told New York Magazine. “In retrospect, I can look back and say, ‘How was it that we didn’t have to go to through intense therapy for the next eight years?’”
To add some spark to her daily school existence, Ivanka decided to take up modelling. Represented by Elite Model Management, the stunning, 5’ 11”, partly Czech and Scottish, well-poised teen made her debut in top fashion magazines Elle and Glamour. By age 16, she was a successful model.
By the time she enrolled at Georgetown University in Washington, DC., she was exuding sophistication. After two years, she followed her older brother to University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance, where she graduated summa cum laude in 2004, with a major in finance and real estate, and a minor in art history and history.
Like her father, she boards the Trump private plane to spend her winter weekends at Mar-a-Lago, where she plays tennis and enjoys lunch by the pool.
Ivanka also finds time to give back. “I help when I can, and I believe in the Red Cross,” she says. “But I am more involved with New York charities such as New Yorkers For The Children, Operation Smile, and New Yorkers for Parks.”
After a long work day, Ivanka retreats to her $1.5 million, classic and contemporary, two-bedroom condo at 502 Park Ave., where she lives alone. While trying to balance her career with her social life, all while making her parents proud, she says she is not yet ready for wedding bells.
“I’m not into marriage now,” she says definitively, “But I hope I do marry. I want kids, but I can not be ruled by a clock.”
As for being his daughter’s boss, Trump couldn’t have apprenticed a better employee. “Ivanka has it all … Brains, beauty, discipline and perseverance,” says Trump. “I am very proud.”
