Greenwich native Hope Hicks has become Connecticut”™s latest addition to President-elect Donald Trump”™s administration, taking on the role of director of strategic communications.
The 28-year-old Hicks first became involved with the Trump orbit in 2012 at the New York public relations agency Hiltzik Strategies, where she was assigned to promote Ivanka Trump”™s fashion line. She became the real estate mogul”™s press secretary in January 2015 when he was formulating his presidential bid and stayed with the campaign while it was undergoing personnel tumult.
Although Hicks has no previous experience in political communications, she comes from a political family. The Hartford Courant reports that her father, Paul B. Hicks III, was chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Stewart McKinney, a Republican who represented Fairfield County on Capitol Hill in the 1970s and early 1980s, and he was later on the board of selectmen in Greenwich.
Despite her media role, which includes the handling of Trump”™s Twitter messaging, Hicks prefers not to give interviews, most notably in a lengthy GQ profile of her published in June that offered quotes from multiple on-the-record sources but did not include her input. The GQ profile stated that Hicks still resides in Greenwich, but also maintains an apartment in a Manhattan property owned by the Trump organization.
