Leland C. “Lee” Pillsbury ’69

After graduating Lee spent 19 years at Marriott, rising to become an Executive Vice President and Corporate Officer.  Lee and his team introduced many innovations at Marriott including the first revenue management system for hotels, the first large scale guest loyalty program in the industry, developing Marriott’s multi-brand strategy and leading Marriott’s entry into the time share industry.

Lee left Marriott in 1988 to launch Thayer Lodging Group, a hotel real estate private equity fund for institutional investors. Thayer Lodging Group sponsored six large equity funds, investing in hotels branded by Marriott, Hilton, Weston, Sheraton, Wyndham, and DoubleTree. During its 25+ years, Thayer Lodging’s funds achieved a 26.2% IRR, ranking it one of the most successful real estate funds. Its properties included the development of the Grand Lakes Resort in Orlando, renovation of the Ritz Carlton San Francisco, the renovation and conversion of Marriott Wardman Park in Washington DC and the renovation and conversion the Diplomat Hotel by Curio in Hollywood Florida as well as over 3 dozen other properties.  The company was sold to Brookfield Asset Management in 2015.

Thayer Lodging Group launched several companies including TIG Global Internet Marketing that built the first website for hotels 2 years before Expedia.  The company was bought by Micros Systems.

Thayer Insurance Group, built by Lee’s wife Mary dramatically cut the cost of property and casualty insurance and employee benefits for Thayer’s hotel portfolio, as well as many other hotel owners.  The company was sold to its key executive in a leveraged buyout.

EMC Venues, developed to market meeting centers built in selected Thayer-owned hotels, was spun off to its key executive and now serves large corporations planning hundreds of meetings in hotels and conference centers nationwide.

PURE Rooms, enabling hotels to offer hypoallergenic guest rooms to travelers suffering from allergies, hay fever, COPD and asthma.  Pure was bought by Ashford Hospitality.

In 2004, Lee and Mary, with Teddy Zhang ’97 visited 18 of China’s provinces at the request of the Beijing Government to meet with local officials to promote the development of travel and tourism within China as a major employer and engine of economic growth.  Thayer China formed a joint venture with China’s Jin Jiang Group to build the first central reservations/global distribution system running in Mandarin.  In 2010, Thayer Lodging Group partnered with Jin Jiang to take Interstate Hotels and Resorts private, tripling the size of the company to manage over 500 hotels worldwide prior to its sale in 2015.

Lee launched Thayer Ventures, an early stage venture capital company focused on early stage companies in travel and hospitality technology with three partners in 2012. Now on its 4^th fund, investments include Canary, Sonder, Inspirato, LightHouse, Duetto, Mews and many others. The Thayer Ventures annual meeting has become the leading event for investors and innovators in the travel tech space.

More recently, Lee has formed TLG Investment Partners to focus on real estate investments. Its projects include the purchase of the 1,000 room Sheraton Grand Hotel in Phoenix and its subsequent sale to Marriott, ground-up development of the Saranac Waterfront Lodge, a 93 room boutique hotel in the Adirondacks, development of 7 gated communities with 252 townhomes and single family homes at the former Mizner Trail Golf Course in Boca Raton Florida, the redevelopment of the 70 acre MetroCenter Mall in Phoenix which will include 2,600 apartments and condominiums, and the redevelopment of the Inverary Golf Course in Lauderhill Florida to include 1,200 apartments.

Lee and Mary have been active supporters of Cornell for their entire careers. In 2006 they made a $15 million donation to the Hotel School to found the Pillsbury Institute for Hospitality Entrepreneurship. Lee and Mary have been named Foremost Benefactors of the University. They have supported the Nolan Hotel School Annual Fund, being Tower Club donors for over 15 years. He also has been an active fund raiser for his class for many years. Lee served as the Frank H. Rhodes Visiting Professor at the University from 2010-2012.

A Presidential Counselor and Trustee Emeritus, Lee served on the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees, during which time he championed the development of the North Campus Residential Project among numerous improvements to Cornell’s physical plant in Ithaca and throughout New York State and City.  Lee was an early and vocal supporter of creating the Johnson College of Business, enabling the University to attract top ranked faculty and offering students a much broader range of academic programs.

They are especially proud of 7 of their nieces and nephews who have graduated from Cornell.

Lee was named Entrepreneur of the Year in 2016 by the University.  In addition, he has been recognized by Penn State, the J.L Kellogg Graduate School Northwestern University, the University of Denver, and HSMAI.  He has lectured at universities around the world including China and Singapore.

Lee and Mary have been married 53 years.  Their many adventures include sports car racing with Sports Car Club of America and Ferrari, where they both graduated from Ferrari’s Advanced Racing Schools in Italy and the U.S.  They crossed the finish line of the London Marathon “hand in hand,” and are the first husband and wife pilot team to fly a single engine airplane across the North Atlantic.  They flew their own twin engine business jet for over 12 years.  Lee and Mary are lifetime sailors and boaters and are members of the New York Yacht Club.

It is an honor for me to have been asked to write a few words about Lee Pillsbury for this well-deserved acknowledgement of his lifetime of achievement.  I have known Lee since he joined the Board of Trustees in 2010 and have worked very closely with him during my entire decade as Chairman.  I can definitively say that Lee has been one of the most effective Trustees with whom I’ve had the privilege of serving during my 20+ years on the Board.

As a native of Ithaca and an undergraduate at Cornell, Lee joined the Board with a deeper understanding of the issues facing our community than most Trustees – so he hit the ground running from the moment he was elected.  In the depths of the Great Financial Crisis, Lee proposed creating a Task Force to focus the university administration and the Board on revenue generating opportunities, not just cost reduction approaches to dealing with the crisis. With a background in real estate, finance, and private investing, Lee brought a level of sophistication to our housing and real estate development discussions that will benefit the university for many years to come.

As Chair of the Trustee Buildings and Properties Committee, Lee led the efforts to revitalize graduate student housing at Maplewood and construct a spectacular expansion of North Campus undergraduate housing which will allow every freshman and sophomore to live on-campus and not have to deal with the incredibly tight, off-campus housing market. He was also instrumental in structuring the financing that put a hotel on the Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island.

Lee’s success in transforming the Ithaca campus has already shown positive, knock-on effects off-campus, which he anticipated.  Given the competition from brand new Cornell housing, Collegetown landlords have been incentivized to transform dilapidated rental properties of questionable safety into attractive new apartment buildings in compliance with 2023 building codes.

Aside from out-of-the-box thinking, deeply relevant expertise, and generous philanthropy over many years, Lee has also been a Big Red cheerleader and a source of Big Red memories for many Cornellians  specially designed Cornell putters and then convincing the Board of Trustees that all of us needed to purchase at least one – with proceeds going to the golf team.  And none of us will ever forget the dinner cruises aboard Lee’s Double Eagle yacht, to welcome Cornell’s newest Trustees or to celebrate the university’s special moments, like winning the right to build Cornell Tech on Roosevelt Island.  Lee and his wife, Mary, hosted an unforgettable nighttime cruise around Roosevelt Island to celebrate this transformational event in our history.

over many years.  He has supported the Cornell golf team, for instance, by commissioning and underwriting the cost of

Anyone who knows Lee knows that he is a big personality — infectious, funny and authentic.  He has given back to Cornell much more than he has received for decades.  I am grateful that he is my friend.

Robert S. Harrison

Chairman Emeritus

Cornell University