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When it comes to hiring women to top posts within Pritzker’s businesses, however, the billionaire is, well, lacking.

A look at some of the upper-echelon positions in Pritzker-run firms shows a complete absence of women.

Pritzker Group Private Capital’s web site lists nine individuals with the titles “managing partner”, “investment partner” or “venture partner.” All are male. The investment team lists 22 people in total. Just one, a paralegal, is female. And of 15 senior advisers listed, just one is a woman.

Pritzker Group Venture Capital’s web site lists eight individuals with the titles “founder,” “managing partner”, “partner” or “venture partner.” Again, all are male. There is one woman listed as vice president and another as senior associate.

Asked about the dearth of women in top jobs at Pritzker firms, a spokeswoman referenced an industry-wide problem.

A study of women in venture capital reported in Techcrunch indicates that women make up just 7 percent of partners in the top 100 firms. That’s a low percentage, but Pritzker’s record of having no female partners still manages to fall below it.

* The Pritzker campaign also pointed to this recent Crain’s Chicago Business article…

When it comes to backing women founders, Chicago venture funds Pritzker Group and Lightbank lead the country.

That’s the word from Jeremy Stanley, the top data scientist at Instacart, who analyzed 700 venture fundings between 2009 and 2013 as reported to the Crunchbase database. Stanley went looking for the firms most supportive of female founders in the wake of a recent scandal in which a San Francisco venture capitalist was accused of making unwanted sexual advances toward women founders.

Pritzker Group Venture Capital finished first. The firm, started by J.B. Pritzker and his brother, Tony, has backed companies such as Chicago-based Eved, GiveForward, Built In and Sittercity, as well as Jessica Alba’s Honest Co. in Santa Monica, Calif. […]

Says Matt McCall, a partner at Pritzker Group: You can’t have 43 percent of business school classes be made up of women and have them account for only 10 percent of companies funded. “I’ve been saying for a while that this is the era of the female entrepreneur.”

* On to the next smallish oppo dump…

MMPI under Kennedy had predominantly male leadership, of the 12 people at SVP level or higher in 2010, nine were male.

Click here for that data.

posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Aug 11, 17 @ 10:08 am

Comments

I think it’s gonna be hard to make those stick, especially since Pritzker just picked a woman as his running mate and both candidates have women in major roles with their campaigns. Maybe if you use it as a wedge to talk about all their byzantine corporate mishegoss?

Comment by Arsenal Friday, Aug 11, 17 @ 10:20 am
It’s almost like all billionaires are bad and that anyone who is that obscenely wealthy is necessarily corrupted by it? Weird.

Comment by Evanstonian Friday, Aug 11, 17 @ 10:20 am
So no different than the private sector labor unions that endorsed JB.

Comment by City Zen Friday, Aug 11, 17 @ 10:29 am
I suppose this is somewhat of an issue, but I have to think there are far bigger concerns in Illinois right now than this. How about this, Rauner is virulently anti public school teacher, a profession that is 80% female. If a politician is anti teacher he is de facto anti professional women.

Comment by wondering Friday, Aug 11, 17 @ 10:31 am
==I think it’s gonna be hard to make those stick, especially since Pritzker just picked a woman as his running mate==
LOL arsenal– it’s kind of a stretch to posit that JB’s choosing a female running mate in a political campaign somehow mitigates the dearth of females in top level high paying managing jobs in his companies.

Comment by Responsa Friday, Aug 11, 17 @ 10:35 am
The last person that ran for governor with questionable hiring practices of minorities and women raised his wrong hand and was sworn-as governor of Illinois.

My point?

It’s important to understand and question Pritzker, as if was important to question Rauner.

Rauner beat Quinn because “Pat Quinn failed”, and the hiring practices Rauner had may have impacted the margin of victory, but it didn’t sink Rauner in the primary of general elections

Comment by Oswego Willy Friday, Aug 11, 17 @ 10:39 am
I do find this “interesting”…

On 8/8/17, 11:14 am.

@mtpaprocki - Alternative headline: Rauner names another highly qualified women (the seventh consecutive) to high-ranking position.

That’s the Twitter of Matt Paprocki, senior VP at the Illinois Policy Institue, “responding” to the Tina Sfondeles tweet about Darlene Senger, an IPI alum joining the Rauner Staff.

Senger wasn’t a qualified hire, Senger was “another highly qualified woman”.

Today is 8/11/17

Comment by Oswego Willy Friday, Aug 11, 17 @ 10:48 am
==The last person that ran for governor with questionable hiring practices of minorities and women raised his wrong hand and was sworn-as governor of Illinois.==

And has a lack of gender parity in hiring really been one of Rauner’s biggest problems? He’s got women at Deputy Gov, CoS, and Comms Director.

I’m sure that we can find legitimate failings (maybe in the cabinet?).

Comment by Arsenal Friday, Aug 11, 17 @ 10:58 am
==it’s kind of a stretch to posit that JB’s choosing a female running mate in a political campaign somehow mitigates the dearth of females in top level high paying managing jobs in his companies==

Such a statement would be a stretch, but it’s rather not what I said, now, is it?

Comment by Arsenal Friday, Aug 11, 17 @ 11:04 am
==If a politician is anti teacher he is de facto anti professional women.==

Because women can’t do anything else? I hope you don’t plan to release your manifesto.

Comment by City Zen Friday, Aug 11, 17 @ 11:05 am
Meh, if Rauner goes that route, you can just run the “I will bury you” spot.

JB already has a spot featuring women who he bankrolled their startups.

Any “rich people problem” Rauner raises can be turned on him.

Comment by wordslinger Friday, Aug 11, 17 @ 11:08 am
It’s kind of tough to make this one stick when your firm was literally just named the #1 venture firm in the country for funding women-owned companies out of hundreds of venture firms in the US.

Comment by Anon0091 Friday, Aug 11, 17 @ 11:42 am
I certainly hope this is from Biss, because if it’s from Kennedy there are any number of ways this hit is going to blow up in his face.

Comment by Will Caskey Friday, Aug 11, 17 @ 12:08 pm
I’m confused. Natasha wrote this: “”A look at some of the upper-echelon positions in Pritzker-run firms shows a complete absence of women.”

I’m confused. I seem to recall they appointed a woman to run one of their businesses. Oh, right, it was this:

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20170322/NEWS01/170329960/pritzker-group-taps-new-investment-chief

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Aug 11, 17 @ 12:30 pm
I dunno. Pritzker bankrolled D. Rauner to the tune of 5 mill. Guess he had confidence in her leadership abilities. Then again, she is a Democrat, so maybe it had more to do with political than gender affiliation.

Comment by My New Handle Friday, Aug 11, 17 @ 12:47 pm