Daddy's girl

Ivanka Trump is late for an interview because a meeting with her dad, Donald, lasted an hour longer than planned. Something came up with the closing of three new projects, so the developers called a last minute pow-wow with the lawyers. Although arranging a meeting is not a big deal because Ivanka's Manhattan office is on the same 26th floor as her father's at the Trump Organisation's Fifth Avenue headquarters in Trump Tower, the young woman is apologetic.

"I am so sorry," she says, fending off three more phone calls and asking her assistant Darcy McNutt to handle them for the moment. "We were closing the financing for three new developments that I am working on, and things came up. We are really busy."

No doubt. Donald has so much confidence in his 25 year-old, Wharton School of Finance educated daughter, that he has involved her in 33 national and international real estate projects after only two years in the business. Ivanka joined her dad's Trump Organisation in 2005 after working for a year as a project manager in the US$1.1bn retail development division of Forest City Ratner Companies in Westchester, New York. That year was crucial to her career as she gained valuable work experience before jumping into Trump territory. She coordinated tenants and learned about the day-to-day travails of the real estate business through developer Bruce Ratner.

When Ivanka began working for her father, she tackled small, easy jobs to prove her worth. She handled leases and learned to be thorough. But shortly after her orientation, she was given a tremendous workload. Having been exposed to every aspect of real estate development from pre-planning, evaluating and analysis, to construction, marketing, operations, sales and leasing, she was ahead of the game. Now she is involved in all of the deal evaluation and development, side by side with her dad and older brother Donald "Don" Trump, Junior, who will be 30 years old on New Year's Eve. Eric, two years younger than Ivanka, just joined the company.

"Ivanka has done a terrific job with our 33 projects around the globe," says Donald Trump, Sr. "She's a dynamo who gets things done."

As striking as she is competitive and dedicated to development, Ivanka has been named vice president of real estate development for the Trump Organisation. However, she prefers not to be saddled with a title. "I report to dad," she says simply. "It's informal, we're like a mom and pop organisation. I give him the status of my projects. He is very demanding but okay to work for."

Don, who is now executive vice president for Trump Organisations' development and acquisitions, agrees: "I had an incredible trial by fire with my dad. He runs a tight ship. I have to work hard and so does Ivanka. There is no free ride around here. We were raised with a strong work ethic from both of our parents."

Ivanka has indeed inherited that family trait. Her mother, Ivana, who 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 Donald bought in 1988 for US$407.5m when Ivanka was a little girl, is a 24/7 workaholic like her ex-husband. This may have something to do with why they fell in love, but then later divorced. So it was no surprise that during the recent July 4 holiday, when the celebration fell on a Wednesday, and many people took off the whole week to escape the city, Ivanka was in her office Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

"I am actually going to the Hamptons over the weekend which is very unusual for me," she admits. "I spend most of my time travelling to our projects around the world. I travel at least once a week because we have a lot going on. So there isn't much time for anything else."

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 US$900m Trump International Hotel & Tower, a 92-storey, 2.6 million sq ft property on the Chicago River.

There will be retail activity as well as the residential and hotel component of the property.
"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 too is Las Vegas, with the US$600m, 64-storey Trump International Hotel & Tower located on the strip. 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 new 44-story Trump Soho in New York.

Internationally, she flies to Dubai to work on the Trump International Hotel & Tower on the Palm Jumeirah Island, which will boast 800 hotel rooms, snazzy stores, a super spa and a health club. She visits the 2.86 million sq ft Trump Ocean Club in Panama City, Panama, with a hotel casino and residences almost sold out at 500%. She is working on projects in Costa Rica, Tel Aviv, Israel, Toronto, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Baja Peninsula, Mexico, and 100 acres, 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, Donald Trump's daughter 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.

On September 4, the Ivanka Trump Boutique is scheduled to open on Madison Avenue in Manhattan. The luxurious store will showcase her first project outside of developing Trump properties, a line of diamond jewellery inspired from heirloom pieces circa 1920 to 1960.

According to Molly Goldfarb, who is helping to develop the Ivanka Trump brand, which will eventually have more boutique locations and go beyond baubles, 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."

Ivanka is partnering with Moshe Lax of Dynamic Diamond to create necklaces, bracelets, earrings and brooches for young, wealthy women who don't feel uncomfortable shopping for jewels that start for less than US$900 and go up to and over US$1m, with most pieces ranging from US$5000 to US$50,000 each.

"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."

Moshe Lax, principal of Dynamic Diamond, is equally enthusiastic about the venture: "Ivanka's business acumen and passion for jewellery, combined with the Dynamic Diamond's quality and craftsmanship, make our partnership a natural success." Ivanka is excited about the jewellery and her new branding arm in the same way she enjoys being the boardroom adviser on the hit NBC TV show, ‘The Apprentice', which made her dad a TV star and raised her own profile to stratospheric heights. Yet for Ivanka, it's all about advancing the Trump name to bolster the development of buildings, and encourage people to buzz about and buy the products. The fact that she is becoming an entrepreneur and jewellery designer is a natural by-product.

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 is spent at work, she doesn't complain.

"Ivanka has always had a very strong work ethic and was fascinated by construction," says her New York City-based friend Christina Floyd, daughter of US 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 by Ivana's parents, Milos and Maria Zelnicek, whom the children revered.

Yet Ivanka also spent a great deal of time with both parents, accompanying them to work projects. Donald took her to construction sites and to his office while he made deals over the phone; Ivana whisked her daughter away to glamorous hotel-casinos in Atlantic City, and of course, to their winter home, Mar-a-Lago, the family's Spanish-Moorish estate and exclusive private club in Palm Beach, Florida.

When Donald and Ivana divorced in 1992, and Trump senior later married Marla Maples, there was relentless interest from around the world. However, the Trump children proved grounded enough to ignore the gossip reports, paparazzi and 24/7 TV entertainment shows.

"I had a unique aspect in my childhood because of how highly publicised my parents' divorce became," Ivanka explains. "But we were sheltered. My parents had an ability to control the situation.

"I lived a comfortable life and after my grandpa died that year, I became stronger because of it all. It is good to struggle because it definitely made me stronger," she says.

Ivanka remembers walking out of school to face hordes of photographers waiting to snap her picture, and reporters asking embarrassing questions. She would try to get into the car, and the press would approach her and ask her to respond immediately to comments that people had made. She did not always understand what was going on because she was a young girl.

"It was horrible. 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?'" Probably because neither parents did drugs or drank, and always made sure someone was there for the kids.

It was during her straight ‘A' boarding school days in Connecticut that Ivanka took up modelling, in part to add some spark to her daily school existence, and also to make some extra money that came in handy after the divorce. Represented by Elite Model Management, the stunning, 5' 11", part-Czech, part-Scottish teen, made her debut in top fashion magazines Elle and Glamour. By the age of 16, she was already a successful model.

In May 1997, she appeared on the cover of Seventeen, the same year she hosted the Miss Teen USA pageant, executive produced by her father. She did runway fashion shows for Gianni Versace, Marc Bouwer and Thierry Mugler, and advertising campaigns for Tommy Hilfiger and Sassoon Jeans, travelling to London, Paris and Milan.

By the time she enrolled at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, she was sophisticated, but not a snob - a credit to her strict and solid upbringing. After two years, she followed her older brother to the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Finance, where she graduated in 2004 with a major in finance and real estate and a minor in art history and history.

"I really like real estate and enjoyed my business classes at Wharton," Ivanka recalls. "I also love art history. I have a good balanced background that has translated well into my career."

While a student, she dated Palm Beach pedigreed Bingo Gubelmann, brother of socialite Phoebe Gubelmann, and cousin of Marjorie Gubelmann Raein, a New York-Palm Beach axis working socialite. Bingo produced the HBO documentary, ‘Born Rich', that chronicled the offspring of the country's wealthiest families, including Ivanka and her friend Christina Floyd. The film was directed by Jamie Johnson, one of the heirs to the Johnson & Johnson fortune. Nominated for two Emmy Awards, ‘Born Rich' showcased the lives and comments of the twentysomething heirs to many high-profile families, including Vanderbilt, Whitney and Newhouse.
The most high-profile, upbeat, and polished heiress to emerge from ‘Born Rich', was Ivanka. She continued to date Bingo until April 2006, when she told the audience of Jay Leno's Tonight Show that she and Gubelmann were finished after three and a half years. At the time, she was doing TV shows to promote ‘The Apprentice'.

Lately, Gubelmann has been spotted hanging out in Los Angeles and New York with young Hollywood starlets including the OC's Mischa Barton and Paris Hilton. Ivanka has dated actor Topher Grace, and told Stuff magazine last year that she had celebrity crushes on Joaquin Phoenix, and that she thought actor Christian Bale was "sort of an Adonis."

But Ivanka has wisely moved on to a better match. She is currently dating young New York Observer owner and real estate scion Jared Kushner, whom she says is just "a good friend."

She lives alone in a US$1.5m, classic and contemporary, two-bedroom condo at 502 Park Avenue but adds that she is not ready for marriage and that she is too busy building her career, enjoying life, and making her parents proud.

"I'm not into marriage now," she says definitively, "but I hope I do marry. I want kids but I cannot be ruled by a clock."

Like her father, she spends most winter weekends at Mar-a-Lago. When she can get away, she boards the Trump private plane and spends a couple of days playing tennis, having lunch by the pool, relaxing with spa treatments at the Mar-a-Lago Club, and golfing with her brothers, her father, or her New York-based friends. They all enjoy the beautifully landscaped Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, about a 10-minute drive from Mar-a-Lago.

"Ivanka is competitive by nature so we have a great time together," says Floyd. "But I think we could both use a little more practice!" Ivanka recently told Golf For Women magazine that her handicap is a "work in progress" and she is happy when she "shoots in the 90s".

Palm Beach and Aspen-based Moira Wolofsky Fiore, a Mar-a-Lago Club member, whose daughter is engaged to actor Charlie Sheen, played tennis with Ivanka a couple of years ago, and really liked her. "Ivanka is not a spoiled brat like some people who are raised in that atmosphere," says Fiore. "She is a natural beauty, inside and out."

Ivanka doesn't spend her few precious Palm Beach nights hanging out in clubs or dining in restaurants. Instead, she prefers to stay at Mar-a-Lago with her friends. If she goes out for dinner, it is normally at the Palm Beach home of long-time friends who have spent holiday vacations with her on the island.

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 leaving Mansion in Miami Beach at 5am. While in Palm Beach, Ivanka is laid-back and introspective. And busy thinking about her next working week.

Like her dad, she wants to improve the city of New York, and knows the value of buzz, promotion and getting out in public to lionise the projects. She is lucky that she loves developing as much as he. Not only is she a standout in looks, but she also has the brains and the background to rise to the very top.

As for being his daughter's boss, Donald couldn't have apprenticed a better employee. "I am in an enviable position because Ivanka has it all," Trump says. "Brains, beauty, discipline and perseverance. I am very proud."