Turning up to interview Ivanka Trump is a bit like walking onto the set of Working Girl, minus the rags-to-riches bit. The Trump family offices, on the 25th floor of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, New York, are an oasis of minimalist calm. To my left is an enormous boardroom full of leather swivel chairs; to my right, a picture-postcard view of Central Park; and in front of me, two assistants are saying that Miss Trump has been caught up on business downtown and is not here to conduct our interview - one that has already been rescheduled four times.

When I return a couple of hours later, Miss Trump has appeared, and the scene is no more lifelike. Ivanka, 26, is all beaming Hollywood smile, impossibly glossy blonde hair, ample bosom (fake, if you believe the rumours) and seemingly endless legs clad in a tasteful trouser suit. She looks like a make-believe version of a businesswoman. But for Ivanka, this is as real as it gets. As the daughter and protégée of America’s most famous businessman, she has lived and breathed this hybrid world - part deal-making, part celebrity showmanship - all her life.

And it transpires that, like her father, she is a master at it. “Real estate is in my blood,” she tells me. “I grew up on construction sites. I spent most of my childhood weekends with either my grandfather or my father on a dump truck somewhere.” After studying for a degree at one of America’s most prestigious business schools and a stint working for another developer (in a place far away from where, as she puts it, the world might be “staring and glaring” at her), she joined the family firm.

Four years later, she is vice president of real estate development and acquisitions, in charge of 33 construction sites across the world, the youngest person on the board of a publicly traded company in America and the face of her own jewellery collection. She is articulate, forthright and entirely comfortable with the position of responsibility in which she finds herself. “I was very much diving into the deep end when I joined. But it’s worked out extremely well thus far,” she says with a smile.

Far from being overshadowed by her famous father, Ivanka quickly carved out her own niche, establishing a reputation for dignity and diligence rarely attributed to New York heiresses. Most days, she is up at 6am, she travels “almost constantly”, is in the office most Sundays just trying to “decompress” and tells me that the secret to staying on top of it all is a good assistant. No nightclub shenanigans for her. “Not that I don’t like going out dancing at the weekends, but I’m not going to be falling off the tables drunk on a Wednesday at 4am, because I’ve got to be here on Thursday.” Romantically, she is linked to Jared Kushner, the 27-year-old proprietor of The New York Observer.

Ivanka works alongside her two brothers, Donald Jr, 30, and Eric, 24, but it is she who seems to be the jewel in the family crown. During negotiations for the interview, her assistant assured me she was so professional that one hour with her was like half a day with someone else (she is not wrong). And, of course, she is wonderfully photogenic.

“One of my funnier experiences was when I walked past a newsstand, and there I was, on the cover of both Forbes and Stuff magazines,” she says. But wherever you see her, know that this is a girl so in charge of her own image – be that in a bikini or business suit – that, rumour has it, her assistant is sent down to revarnish the nails on her wax model in Madame Tussauds every week. You are, after all, talking about the daughter of a woman whose fourth wedding just ran over 27 pages in Hello! magazine and a man who has managed to make property development a national spectator sport. “Somebody may dismiss me because I’m young, blonde or female, but that can be used to one’s advantage. Look at all this stuff,” she says, pointing to the endless framed magazine covers of herself that crowd her office walls. “I joke with my brothers that if they were on the cover of a men’s magazine, I don’t know how well it would sell. So, yeah, from that perspective, it’s an advantage.”

Still, following in her father’s footsteps can’t be easy. “There is a natural expectation. My father is larger than life, as is my mother. But it doesn’t concern me any more.” She says her father does her no favours. “If there was a deal he wasn’t into, we’d know,” she says. “He wouldn’t try to spare our feelings.” Since she took up business, their relationship is better than ever. “He’s not a chitchatter, so now there’s always some deal we can talk about.” She also praises her mother, Ivana. “She’s a great negotiator and is extremely motivated and driven. They complemented each other. She worked for my father when I was growing up. She did all the interiors for his properties. She ran the Plaza hotel when he owned it and she ran a casino in Atlantic City.” They are still all involved in each other’s lives. In spite of their acrimonious divorce in 1991, after Donald’s affair with the former beauty queen Marla Maples (Ivana famously said at the time: “Don’t get mad, get everything”), he attended her recent wedding.

So, how does Ivanka manage being a twentysomething girl in a world dominated by fiftysomething men? “I’m a girlie girl,” she says. “I’m not afraid to be feminine, to wear pink to the office. But there is a line to be drawn - I see it all the time, if people get a little too cute - there’s something about leveraging what you’ve got and your feminine wiles, but not to the point where you’re doing yourself a disservice.”

Ivanka’s world might be very different from yours or mine, but her ambition is recognisable. “It has never occurred to me that I have enough on my plate and I should stop now. There is always something better, bigger, sexier than what you’re doing.”

Looking at her here, in her glossy office, with her glossy life and her glossy looks, that is somewhat hard to believe. But if anyone can find it, have no doubt it is her.

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