Heidi Cruz

Heidi Suzanne Nelson was born on August 7, 1972, in San Luis Obispo, California, to Suzanne Jane (née Rouhe),[4] a dental hygienist, and Peter Christian Nelson, a dentist.[5] Nelson was raised as a Seventh-day Adventist.[6][7] Her maternal grandfather Olavi Johannes Rouhe was from Savonlinna, Finland.[8] During a part of Nelson's childhood, she lived with her family in Kenya, Nigeria, and throughout Asia, where they served as missionaries, while both parents participated in dental health work.[7][9][10][11] Nelson became interested in business as a child, and sold homemade bread with her brother, Scott.[12][13]

Nelson attended Valley View Adventist Academy in Arroyo Grande, near her home town of San Luis Obispo. She completed her secondary education in 1990, at Monterey Bay Academy, an Adventist boarding school about 150 miles north in La Selva Beach, California.[13] Following high school, Nelson attended Claremont McKenna College, graduating Phi Beta Kappa with a BA in Economics and International Relations in 1994.[14][15] While attending the school, she was active in the student Republican group.[16] While at Claremont McKenna, she studied abroad at the University of Strasbourg.[17] In 1995, she received a Masters of European Business degree from Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management of the Université libre de Bruxelles in Brussels, Belgium.[15] Her second graduate degree was an MBA from Harvard Business School in 2000.[7][14][18]

Subsequent to getting married in 2001, Cruz moved from Washington, D.C., to Texas in 2004, and experienced a period of depression as a result of the transition.[19][20][21][22] Cruz and her husband have two daughters, Caroline and Catherine.[11][23] Since 2011, she characterizes herself as the primary breadwinner of the family.[24] Cruz converted to the Southern Baptist denomination, though she still maintains a vegetarian diet in adherence with her Adventist upbringing.[25]

During the 2021 Texas power crisis, she and her family decided to vacation in Cancún, Mexico; Cruz reportedly messaged friends and neighbors to propose a stay at the Ritz-Carlton, partly on the grounds that the nightly rate was attractive.[26][27] Cruz's messages and her role in the vacation placed her at the center of an international scandal;[26][27][28] in addition to leaving the state during a period of crisis, the Cruzes came under fire for traveling internationally both during the COVID-19 pandemic and during the deadly storm, thereby violating official government guidelines, the guidelines of the school where their daughters are enrolled, and Ted Cruz's own public recommendations.[26][29]

In 2000, Nelson worked as an economic policy director on the Bush for President campaign, where she met her future husband Ted Cruz.[5] Following her marriage to Ted Cruz in 2001, she went on to work for the Bush administration; she began as a top deputy to U.S. Trade Rep. Robert Zoellick, focusing on economic policy.[6][7][30] Cruz worked as director of the Latin America desk at the Department of Treasury in 2002.[30][31] She taught herself how to speak Spanish between jobs.[32]

In 2003, Cruz reported directly to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. Cruz eventually became the director for the Western Hemisphere on the National Security Council where she "had Rice's ear."[31] During a New York Times interview, Cruz recalled enjoying her tenure with the Bush administration and found her work to be "personally fulfilling."[33] That year, she delivered the commencement address for the graduating class of Tennessee's Southern Adventist University.[19] After commuting between Washington, D.C., and her husband's home state of Texas for a year, she moved to Texas in 2004, where she briefly worked for Merrill Lynch.[24] She has previously worked for JPMorgan Chase.[13] In 2005, she began working for Goldman Sachs as a private wealth manager.[34]

From 2005 to 2011, she was an active member of the Council on Foreign Relations and was a member of the Independent Task Force on North America that in 2005, published a report entitled "Building a North American Community."[30][35] Cruz sits on the board of directors for the Greater Houston Partnership.[36] After seven years at Goldman Sachs, Cruz was promoted in 2012, to regional head of the Southwest United States for the Investment Management Division in Houston.[7][18][37] In 2019, the Trump administration interviewed Cruz as a finalist for the position of president of the World Bank.[38]

Heidi Cruz speaking at a Ted Cruz for President fundraiser in The Woodlands, Texas, February 2016

Cruz took a leave of absence without pay to participate in her husband's 2016 presidential campaign.[11] During the campaign, she made multiple solo public appearances, speaking on her husband's behalf.[39] Former George W. Bush administration official Sara Taylor Fagen said she was successful in softening her husband's image, which she further argued was essential for "a candidate whose main obstacle to the Republican nomination may be tone and personality", though director of the SuperPAC Our Principles PAC Katie Packer argued her help could only go so far and voters would not support a candidate based on their spouse.[40]

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