By all accounts, Hicks is a natural campaigner – with no previous political experience, she's said to be an island of calm at the chaotic centre of the chaotic campaign by a chaotic candidate. So what's the catch – what counts Hope Hicks in? Hope Hicks watches from the sidelines at a Donald Trump press conference. Credit:New York Times She's pragmatic. When it came to a choice, she dumped the boyfriend and hung on to what has to be one of the most challenging and, at the same time, scary jobs in the entire 2016 election campaign. She does come from a family of PR consultant types – her father and her great-grandfather were in the game. And politics is in the family blood – her parents met as congressional aides; her father to a Republican, her mother to a Democrat.

Used in their political context, the American terms "ball breaker" and "hard ass" invoke some of the qualities Hicks brings to the campaign. But while others on the team, like recently sacked campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and the previously sacked campaign manager Roger Stone might be described in such terms, Hicks personifies the notion of the steel fist in the velvet glove. Reporters who have not been put on the Trump blacklist speak well of her – professional and mostly charming, particularly given that she alone handles the Herculean weight of the demands of the American and international media that most days, dump about 250 queries and interview requests in her in-box. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks in New York. Credit:AP Hicks is described as "a hugger and a people pleaser." But lest you be distracted by those green eyes, remember this – she's the one who managed Trump's rebuke of Pope Francis, because the pontiff dared to question the Christian credentials of any who would propose a border wall to block entry to the US of undocumented migrants. And as told by GQ, Hicks helped malign a female reporter who had been manhandled by Lewandowski – claiming she was a lying attention hound [notwithstanding that Trump's own security cameras had recorded the encounter].

Hope Hicks, Donald Trump's communications director, speaks on one phone and checks another during a Trump rally. Credit:New York Times Hicks also manages the Trump media blacklist – each morning, he marks up a clutch of cuts from the media's coverage of the previous 24 hours, reportedly using circles and arrows as he annotates his "likes" and "dislikes" in anywhere between 30 and 50 reports. As told to GQ by a campaign insider: "He reads something he doesn't like by a reporter, and it's like, 'This motherf---er! All right, fine. Hope?' He circles it. 'This guy is banned! He's banned for a while.' That's exactly how it works." Not surprisingly, some of the Trump contempt for the media wears off on the press secretary. She's said to be often irked, and opts not to respond to questions which she casts as the reporters playing detective, merely to irritate the campaign, which prompts her generous GQ profiler to observe: "She's seemingly unaware that the [reporters] might just be vetting a potential US president." Ivanka Trump listens to her father, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, speak. Credit:AP When Hicks is not flying on Trump Force One with Trump, she camps in a company apartment in Manhattan – "I haven't really been home since Thanksgiving," she told New York magazine early in June.

She is so adept that so far in the campaign, there have been only two Hicks hiccups – in attempting to email a campaign strategy document to a colleague, she inadvertently sent it to a reporter; and she ended up being the story in a report in the New York Post, when a difference of opinion with Lewandowski degenerated into what was described as a tear-stained screaming match for all to see in the middle of Manhattan's East 61st Street. How did all this come to pass? Hicks grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut and attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, where she played lacrosse for four years – impressing coaches with her on-field intelligence, but reportedly irritating teammates by being the only one to observe the university's no-alcohol rule. Her first job was in a New York PR shop, Hiltzik Strategies; the first account she was assigned to was the Trump suite of businesses. That was in 2012 and by 2014 Hicks was pulled into the bosom of the Trump operation, going on the payroll as director of communications; doing PR for the Trump resorts, but mostly promoting and, occasionally, modelling daughter Ivanka Trump's fashion line. She was working with Ivanka Trump on the 25th floor of Trump Tower in January 2015 when she was summoned to Donald Trump's office. "Mr. Trump looked at me and said, 'I'm thinking about running for president, and you're going to be my press secretary,'" Hicks told New York magazine. Self-deprecating, she says that when Trump declared: "We're going to Iowa", her immediate response was to wonder what people wear in Iowa.

Six months later, she and Lewandowski were putting the finishing touches to the announcement of Trump's explosive candidacy, which was staged in the lobby of Trump Tower – right down to the actors who were paid $US50 each to wear Trump T-shirts and wave placards. When they understood Hicks would not be able to work simultaneously for the campaign and the corporation, she opted for the greater certainty of corporate life, for which she earned the unending animosity of the former pro-Tea Party Lewandowski. As told by Trump political adviser Sam Nunberg: "[Lewandowski] made her cry a bunch of times – he told her [on hearing of her decision to stay with the corporation], 'You made a big f---ing mistake – you're f---ing dead to me.' " Corey Lewandowski, campaign manager for Donald Trump. Credit:AP The intervention of Trump reportedly smoothed things over – though Lewandowski's reported treatment of Hicks was one of the reasons that Ivanka Trump and her two brothers successfully pushed this week for their father to dump Lewandowski as campaign manager. Evolving in the madness of the moment, her job is more than mere press secretary. As described by The Washington Post, which this month was relegated to the Trump media blacklist, Hicks is "Trump's media handler, corporate aide and the figure responsible for executing the details of the most surprising and divisive political rise in recent history."

Apart from keeping reporters at bay, Hicks is integral in Trump's prolific tweeting – he dictates to her; she sends the candidate's words to another campaign operative, who does the actual tweet in Trump's name. Offering what might be read as a backhanded compliment, one of her university lacrosse teammates tells the New York Post: "[Trump] is a fierce person and extremely dedicated, and she had the same type of demeanour with a perfectly put-on exterior." Hicks has been a registered Republican voter since 2008. But the closest she had come to a political thought was as a pre-teen when she was interviewed about her earliest modelling work – "I was home for Easter, reading the article [and] it said 'if modelling doesn't work out for you, what would you do?' and I said, 'Well, I'm not really sure, but I'm interested in politics," she told Marie Claire magazine. A point made in the GQ profile is that Hicks is a product not of Washington, but of the Trump organisation, "a marble-walled universe where one's delightful agreeability and ferocious loyalty are worth more than conventional experience". The boss speaks well of her: "She was able to build political experience quickly. She was very natural. She was very natural when it comes to picking it up, and lots of people can't pick it up, because it's so fast moving. It's faster moving than anything else. You know, for real estate, you have two days to get back. This thing [campaigning] you have, like, four seconds before the story goes blasting out."

Sure, it's a walk on the wild side for Hicks – but not without rewards. Asked if she would be joining him at the White House, Trump is quick to reply: "Oh yeah, sure…" It's appropriate then to go back to a quote Hicks selected for her senior school yearbook: "The future belongs to those who believe in the power of their dreams." And how utterly appropriate to the Trump campaign that she was wrong in the attribution. The words come from Eleanor Roosevelt; Hicks attributed them to Jimmy Buffett. Follow Fairfax World on Facebook Follow Fairfax World on Twitter