Two days before the 2024 election, former U.S. Senator Kelly Loeffler strode to the stage at a Trump rally in Macon, Georgia, wearing a bright pink jacket that perfectly matched the pink MAGA hats in the stands behind her. “Hello patriots!” she yelled, with her hand in the air. “Is Georgia Trump country?!” Speaking to the crowd, she took direct aim at billionaire Mark Cuban, who had recently said Trump does not associate with strong, intelligent women. “I stood up to Mark Cuban,” Loeffler boomed into the microphone, “And I said, ‘You know what, Mark, I’m an entrepreneur. I’m a former CEO. I owned a basketball team. You know, I’ll take you on.”

Loeffler likes to paint herself as a self-made business titan. There’s no question she has had a successful career, mostly at Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company to the New York Stock Exchange, where she led investor relations, marketing and communications, accumulating enough equity to sell more than $30 million of shares and still retain a $12 million stake. But the real money in her household—a nearly 20,000-square-foot spread in Atlanta—comes from Loeffler’s husband, Jeff Sprecher, the founder of Intercontinental Exchange, who is worth an estimated $1 billion.

Loeffler, who married Sprecher in 2004, two years after joining his company, chafes at the suggestion that she owes her financial success to her husband. Lately, she has jumped at opportunities to prove herself. In 2018, she became CEO of crypto startup Bakkt and promptly rang up massive losses. With the business flailing, she shifted to politics, writing a big check to Georgia’s governor, who then appointed her to the U.S. Senate after Johnny Isakson stepped down amid health concerns (he had been battling Parkinson’s). On Capitol Hill, Loeffler sowed doubts about the 2020 election and spoke out against Black Lives Matter, leading players on her WNBA team to campaign for her opponent. She then lost her only election, handing her seat to Baptist pastor Raphael Warnock and helping flip control of the U.S. Senate to Democrats.

But with enough cash and connections, there’s no end to second chances. Loeffler’s latest: an appointment to Donald Trump’s cabinet, where she will helm the Small Business Administration, despite her own small-business struggles. “Can’t keep a good woman down,” says former Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer, who worked with Loeffler before and after she joined Intercontinental Exchange and is one of several former colleagues who remain impressed with her. “Why would I want her in charge of the SBA? In fact, the fact that she does have some things that didn’t go perfectly well, you know. Don’t give me the person who has always succeeded. I want the person who is a success but has failed along the way, because they know what scars are like.”

Loeffler (fifth from the left) joined Donald Trump last month at the New York Stock Exchange, which she helped her husband's company acquire in 2013.

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communications professional, Loeffler has a knack for self-promotion, portraying herself more like an ultrawealthy mogul than a mere executive, complete with a rags-to-riches tale. She often talks about how she grew up on a family farm in Illinois, emphasizing humble roots while glossing over the significant scale of the operation, which reportedly included 1,800 acres and a trucking business. She stayed near home to attend the University of Illinois, studying business and becoming the first in her family to graduate from college. “An opportunity,” she said on the podcast of Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn, “for me to get off the farm.” While Forbes reached her staff and several ex-colleagues, Loeffler did not agree to be interviewed.

Diploma in hand, she moved to........

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