Pritzker, J. B., 1965-

Jay Robert "J. B." Pritzker (born January 19, 1965) is an American businessman, philanthropist, and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he has served as the 43rd governor of Illinois since 2019. He is a private business owner based in Chicago and a managing partner and co-founder of the Pritzker Group, and a member of the Pritzker family that owns the Hyatt hotel chain. He has an estimated personal net worth of $3.4 billion.

Born and raised in Atherton, California, he attended Massachusetts boarding school Milton Academy and then graduated from Duke University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science. Pritzker went on to earn his Juris Doctor degree from Northwestern University School of Law. He is an attorney and a member of the Illinois State Bar Association and the Chicago Bar Association. Pritzker served as chairman of ChicagoNEXT, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's council on innovation and technology, and he founded 1871, a non-profit digital start-up incubator (named for the year of the Great Chicago Fire), Chicago's digital start-up center. He played an important role in the creation of the Illinois Venture Capital Association and the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center. He also co-founded Chicago Ventures and funded the start-up of Techstars Chicago and Built in Chicago.

Together with his brother Tony, Pritzker co-founded Pritzker Group Private Capital, which owns and operates middle-market companies. The group includes a growing family of companies including pallet rental leader PECO Pallet and medical device maker Clinical Innovations. In 2008, Pritzker received the Entrepreneurial Champion Award from the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce for his efforts to promote economic development and job creation.

On April 6, 2017, Pritzker announced that he was running for the Democratic nomination for Governor of Illinois. His campaign received the endorsements of Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, Illinois Congressman Luis Gutiérrez, former Illinois Congressman Glenn Poshard, more than a dozen members of the Illinois General Assembly, twenty-one local labor unions, and the Illinois AFL-CIO. On March 20, 2018, he won the Democratic gubernatorial primary, handily beating each of his primary opponents by more than 20%. In the November general election, Pritzker defeated incumbent Republican governor Bruce Rauner. Pritzker received 54% of the vote, while Rauner received 39%.

After taking the oath of office, Governor Pritzker immediately began working with Democrats and Republicans to accomplish one of the most ambitious and consequential legislative agendas in state history. During his first session, the governor passed a balanced budget with a bipartisan majority, making historic investments in education and human services, while restoring fiscal stability to Illinois. The governor also won bipartisan passage for legalization of adult-use recreational cannabis and for Rebuild Illinois, the largest investment in state history to upgrade roads, bridges, rail, broadband, and universities in every corner of the state.

The governor took bold action, putting state government back on the side of working families by creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, raising the minimum wage to a living wage, making college more affordable for nearly 10,000 additional students, and advancing equal pay for women.