The country’s top chefs, designers, media personalities and businesses are part of this dynamic city. We know that Chicagoans are used to the highest standards.
I’ve never had a sense of entitlement. I saw how hard my father worked for his money, and it was always made very clear to me that things wouldn’t just be given to me.
To the extent I can, I try to maintain a laser focus on what needs to get done from a priority standpoint. And not just from an urgency standpoint, but from a value-added standpoint. So where can I add the most value? Where is my time best spent?
If there’s one single thing that I do every single time, it’s require references and, ideally, at least one reference from every company they’ve worked at.
In both business and personal life, I’ve always found that travel inspires me more than anything else I do. Evidence of the languages, cultures, scenery, food, and design sensibilities that I discover all over the world can be found in every piece of my jewelry.
I’ve also built my own business, and obviously it’s a brand that I’ve built and it’s wholly owned by me and something that certainly my experience observing him and working with him and for him has informed how I make business decisions around my brand. But it’s my company.
I generally wake up, exercise and read through a huge amount of newspapers. I get to the office somewhere between 7:30 and 8:00 – my brothers and I are always the first ones in.
I think there are multiple ways to have your voice heard. In some cases, it’s through protest and it’s through going on the nightly news and talking about or denouncing every issue on which you disagree with. Other times it is quietly and directly and candidly.
I hate the word surrogate, because what does that mean? Like when people talk about I`m my father’s confident, at one point, they were actually saying major newspapers were publicly were writing that I was Vice Presidential candidate. I`m saying no. I`m a daughter.
I am a very proud daughter. Obviously to be able to see this transpiring, to watch him achieve so much as a politician – and we’re certainly not a family of politicians, and politics is certainly not our family business – it’s been amazing.
I probably not as likely to say what’s on my mind, and I think most people aren’t. It’s not something I would want to always be doing. So that’s why I’m not a politician.
It’s important to get in the habit of growing as a human being, developing and refining leadership and management skills and entrepreneurial instincts and changing to accommodate the times.
Traditionally women have been more reticent to acknowledge their ambition and to say it with pride. So I like having people who work for us who are ambitious, engaged, respectful. Mis-hiring is a huge mistake. It’s a tremendous opportunity cost throwing the position to the wrong person.
As President, my father will change the labor laws that were put into place at a time when women were not a significant portion of the workforce. And he will focus on making quality child care affordable and accessible for all.
Hiring great people is almost the most important thing you can do as a leader because they enable you to scale, and they create better leverage for you and your time.
