Elizabeth Leahy

Founder & Managing Partner of Purple Sage Ventures
(C’91, P’21, P’24)

Liz Leahy is an early-stage investor, start-up advisor, and entrepreneur with 20 + years of experience. She is currently the Founder of Purple Sage Ventures.

Liz was a founding team member of Bigfoot Interactive, an early innovator in email marketing. She created the professional services platform around the company’s technology solution and helped build a diverse Fortune 1000 customer base that included Capital One, Disney, The Washington Post and AT&T Wireless. Liz also co-founded Section 101, a premier website platform for the music and entertainment industries.

In 2021, Liz launched Purple Sage Ventures which invests in early-stage start-ups with diverse founders. The company’s primary focus is on products and services that innovate supply chains, increase business and personal productivity, and reimagine wellness. While not a social impact fund, many of PSV’s portfolio companies have positive social and environmental impacts. 

Liz is a mentor for the Atlantic Council’s empowerME initiative, which supports Saudi female entrepreneurs as they work to scale their start-ups. She is on the Board of the Columbia Business School Lang Center for Entrepreneurship and is the Pitch Coach in Residence at the Columbia University Alumni Startup Lab.  Liz graduated from Georgetown University and Columbia Business School with honors. She has taught at Columbia Business School and guest-lectured at Georgetown. She is also a founder and current board chair of the Georgetown Angel Investor Network (GAIN).