John Pritzker says he grew up “with a service gene.”
His grandfather founded the Hyatt hotel chain, but as a teen Pritzker spent his summers vacuuming floors at the Hyatt Regency Chicago and slinging coleslaw at Lenny’s Deli.
He later worked his way up the Hyatt flowchart, eventually becoming managing director.
Pritzker also devoted energy to serving the Jewish community, including time on the Osher Family Foundation board, the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation board and executive committee, the endowment committee and planning and agency support steering committee.
Now he crowns his federation service with a two-year term as JCF president. It’s a job he is eager to tackle, especially with the federation’s coffers full following a record-setting annual campaign. But Pritzker is the first to admit all is not well in the Jewish universe these days.
“The glee over the campaign was over very quickly,” he says. “Now we’re moving into an emergency campaign. We are very committed to our project in Israel.”
Pritzker, 53, is referring to the federation’s connection with the Upper Galilee, the region recently bombarded by Hezbollah rockets. The JCF has been at the forefront of American Jewish federations launching emergency fundraising campaigns for Israel during the current crisis.
Despite the successful campaign, Pritzker sees plenty of room for improvement. “Sometimes in organizations,” he says, “people get focused on their specific areas, but there’s not a lot of cross-pollination. We need a stronger integration of all of the departments.”
Having run JCF’s 2004 campaign, and being a longtime donor himself, Pritzker is well versed in the fundraising arts and sciences. But in his new role as president, he acknowledges that there is more to federation life than making money. There’s the spending of it as well.
“You can’t just deal with campaign,” he says. “You have to plan allocations, and you can’t deal with one without dealing with the other.”
To do that, Pritzker will oversee the symbiosis between the federation’s lay and professional staff, something he looks forward to. “The reason I’m so interested in this job, aside from the great work,” he says, “is that I get to deal with some of the most successful businesspeople and not-for-profit people, not just in the Bay Area, but in the country.”
He will also no doubt devote time and energy to donors, making sure they remain on board with the federation’s goals. Though those goals can change over time.
“I don’t think of myself as an old-line federation guy,” says Pritzker. “I ran the campaign three years ago, but I haven’t been doing federation work coming off my daddy’s knee. That might be an advantage. We have an opportunity to do things we haven’t before. Donors change; philanthropy has changed. We have to acclimate to the changes and operate in an efficient way.”
Given Pritzker’s background in business operations, it’s no surprise he thinks this way. He grew up in the Chicago suburb of Glencoe in a culturally rich Jewish home. His career at Hyatt Hotels took him around the country, eventually landing him in the Bay Area in 1984.
After more than a decade with the company, he left to start up several businesses in the hospitality industry, including Red Sail Sports, Mandara Spa and the Odyssey Club. He was also a founding board member of Ticketmaster and Chemdex Corporation. Today he is a partner at Geolo Investment Group.
Together with Lisa, his wife of 25 years, Pritzker has three sons ranging in age from 13 to 22. Lisa Pritzker works at San Francisco General Hospital in child and adolescent psychiatric services.
As he settles into his new post, Pritzker says he is mindful of the changes in federation culture over the last several years. Changes he welcomes.
“I don’t think there is a central address for the Jewish community anymore,” he notes. “We have our areas of strength where we have more information and detail than anybody. People think more about where the money goes. They are more results oriented, and we need to accommodate that.”