LEE GREER
PARTNER
Lee is the President of the Greer Companies, a commercial real estate development company and retail hospitality company operating different restaurant concepts as well as a franchisee of Marriott and Hilton hotels. Over the last 17 years, Lee helped build, operate and sell the company’s Mint Julep Restaurant Division which included 44 Cheddar’s Casual Café full service restaurants. The division generated over $200 million in annual sales and employed over 6,000 employees at the time of its sale in 2017. Lee served on the Board of Directors of Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen through its sales to Darden Restaurants, Inc. Lee is also an active investor and board member of several growing restaurant brands, an entertainment escape room concept, and several other companies.
Previously Lee was a Co-founder and the Executive VP of iVisionary, a venture capital fund and strategic services firm specializing in technology and biosciences. Prior to joining iVisionary, he was a senior analyst at Merrill Lynch in New York, a global Investment Banking firm. His work was used to close landmark deals including the $5.3 billion Initial Public Offering of UPS, and the attempted $11.8 billion acquisition of US Airways Group by UAL Corporation.
Lee is a graduate of the HOBY Foundation, Leadership Lexington, Tates Creek High School, and the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia, where he earned a B.S. in Commerce with concentrations in Finance and Management Information Systems. In 1995, he was elected into the Kentucky High School Football Hall of Fame, was a Wendy’s National High School Heisman Award finalist, was awarded TCHS’s Faculty Cup, and won Lexington’s Tommy Bell Award for the city’s ‘Most Outstanding Student Athlete’. He was selected as Leadership Lexington’s ‘Distinguished Leader’ in 2005 and was given LYPA’s “Rising Star” award in 2007.
Lee currently serves on the local advisory boards of BB&T and Shriner’s Hospital. He has been a member of the Lexington Charity Club, which he co-founded in 2001 and served as its President from 2002 thru 2008. He served as a board member of the Bluegrass Community Foundation from 2005 until 2012. He previously served on the Board of Together Lexington, the Downtown Lexington Corporation, Lexington’s Destination 2040 Steering Committee, UK’s College of Education PEP Lab Steering Committee (which promotes health and fights child obesity), as well as the Leadership Lexington Steering Committee. In addition to his love of Kentucky, Lee enjoys sports, outdoor adventure, reading and charitable work. Lee has two daughters ages 7 and 9.