Leigh Sullivan
Principal Managing Partner | Sullivan Group
Leigh has been an entrepreneur since she was 13 years old. When she decided that she wanted a bike, her very emphatic father told her “no,” saying that she already had a bike and that if she wanted a new one, she would have to “work for it.” So that is what she did. She found a job, and she has never looked back from that experience.
Leigh has been a lifetime entrepreneur with many successful careers, from working alongside her father, Jim Sullivan, who founded SullivanHayes, to blazing trails in the Colorado culinary scene.
In 2001, Leigh took a hiatus from real estate to pursue a restaurant career, opening her first restaurant in Cherry Creek with her dad and partners, Steve Farber and Charlie Huang. Following that success, Leigh and Jim founded Sullivan Restaurant Group, launching beloved Denver restaurant concepts like nine75, emogene, Oscar's Steakhouse, and Ocean in Cherry Creek. In 2009, Leigh co-founded the wildly popular TAG restaurant on Larimer Street, which she managed until 2011 when she left to start her restaurant consulting firm, Leigh Sullivan Enterprises. There, she met Travis, and together they helped over 100 clients achieve whatever they needed to be done: new builds, concepts, design, finding subs, remodels, branding, etc.
In early 2023, Jim asked Leigh to return to the family business to head up business development and client relationship management for Jim and Travis’s new commercial construction fee development company, The Sullivan Group. With Jim’s passing, she never got the chance to work alongside her father fully again like she had growing up, but she takes immense pride in carrying on his vision—in partnership with her husband Travis and their growing team.
Leigh is an avid lover of family, including the newest member, grandson James MacAlister Paranto. She’s also the proud mom of three really cool kids, Mackenzie, Weston, and Grace, and wife to a great guy. Leigh also adores dogs (all of them) and helped co-found and grow Peppers Senior Dog Sanctuary, heading up their branding, social media strategy, and community outreach while assisting with the facility's design. Today, she sits on the Board of Pepper’s Senior Dog Sanctuary and Firefly Autism.
