Jodi’s Journal: Marian Sullivan, accomplished business owner met humble humanitarian

The first time I met Marian Sullivan, she was far more interested in dishing out a piece of pecan pie for me than she was serving up any details for the story I was hoping to report about her life in business.

The fact that I was sitting in her kitchen at all was not something I took for granted. Marian had just sold the business she had built into a national leader in the wholesale gift and home decor industry. I knew it was a terrific story — an under-the-radar, homegrown success led by one of few women of her time to ever hold the role of CEO in Sioux Falls.

I also knew she was anything but a spotlight seeker.

But I’d leaned on some mutual friends to encourage her to at least have a conversation, and even if it meant eating a good chunk of that pie, I was hoping to hang around long enough to convince her to allow me to tell her story.

That was nearly a decade ago — and, even now, I can feel her cringing from heaven at the thought of me giving her another headline.

Via Sioux Falls Business: Jodi’s Journal