Nancy Stone/Chicago Tribune

Penny Pritzker, billionaire businesswoman and one of the Most Powerful People in Chicago, resigned from the Chicago Board of Education today. 

In the wake of her resignation, there's been a lot of speculation that Pritzker is about to be nominated as the next Commerce Secretary by President Obama (something we've talked about in the past).

We covered the Pritzker empire in depth over a decade ago. While there may be speculation about Pritzker's next move today, it's important to she's part of an enigmatic, private group that's hard to predict:

"It is easy to think of the tight-knit Pritzkers as a monolith, a collective of wealthy blood relatives thinking and acting as one. In reality, though, they are a diverse collection of individuals with widely divergent interests and aspirations."

Read the rest of our 2002 piece if you want to know more.