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REALTOR® Hired as Trump's New Apprentice
Kendra Todd of Boynton Beach, Fla., becomes the first woman and real estate professional to win a job on The Donald’s reality TV show.
BY HALEY M. HWANG
For Kendra Todd, it was a long six months between the time taping ended last November for NBC’s “The Apprentice 3” and the live season finale May 19 to hear the words, “You’re hired.”
That’s exactly what the irrepressible Donald Trump told Todd, 27, a real estate salesperson from Boynton Beach, Fla., in front of a packed crowd at New York University's Skirball Center. Fourteen million viewers tuned in to watch the season finale of The Donald’s reality TV show.
For Todd, the moment she was hired was the beginning of an indoctrination into Trump’s high-profile and fast-paced business world. She had to immediately leave the live stage to tape what would turn out to be a commercial that aired immediately after the show, and she’s been on a whirlwind media tour ever since.
Todd’s days have been filled with nonstop interviews on both coasts for newspapers, magazines, radio, and television. She has appeared on major network news shows, has come face-to-face with Regis and Kelly, and even sat on Jay Leno’s couch.
“It’s pretty spectacular,” Todd said recently from her hotel in New York before heading back home to Florida after an unforgettable taste of what her life will be like now as Trump’s new apprentice. “The highlight for me has been to spend time with Mr. Trump.”
Todd is the first real estate practitioner and the first woman to be hired as an apprentice by Trump. In the first two seasons of the show, Trump hired Bill Rancic, an entrepreneur from Chicago who had launched a successful online cigar Web site, and Kelly Perdew, a West Point grad and former U.S. Army military intelligence officer who spearheaded several business start-ups in California.
This season, Todd beat runner-up Tana Goertz, 37, a Mary Kay cosmetics consultant and business woman from Des Moines, Iowa, in a grueling “16-week job interview" that involved weekly team challenges between Net Worth ("street smarts" or high school grads) and Magna Corp. ("book smarts" or college grads). Todd's victory over Goertz , 16 other contestants, and more than "1 million job applicants" was hailed as a victory of the book smarts group over the street smarts group.
Todd’s project for the Trump Organization will be to oversee the renovation of a 68,000 square foot oceanfront mansion in Palm Beach, Fla. She’ll begin her new job in June, when she begins training with Carolyn Kepcher, an executive vice president with the Trump Organization, in Westchester County, N.Y.
Even with her new job, Todd says that My House Real Estate Inc., a real estate marketing company in Boynton Beach she started up with business partner Charles Andrews, will continue to grow and expand. They plan to add brokerage services soon and start recruiting sales associates to work for the company.
Todd isn’t sure at this point what the future holds beyond the one-year employment contract with Trump.
“Real estate is my passion,” she said. “Whether I’ll be working for Trump 10 years from now, I don’t know. But we’ll be working together on projects for a very long time.”
Editor’s Note: Todd is one of REALTOR® Magazine’s “30 Under 30” for 2005. To read the feature, http://lnchip1/rmomag.NSF/73FA40A654CFE10C86256D35005EFF78/6A68610CED8A95BF8625700000715F3E?OpenDocument#Kendra%20Todd%2027%20salesperson,%20RE%2FMA.
