Economic Executive

As Amazon’s vice president of worldwide economic development, Holly Sullivan’s job is to help guide the e-commerce giant’s investments and job creation.

Sullivan leads a team of about 60 people from her home base in Wilmington. Her team identifies and evaluates potential locations for Amazon, ranging from sites for fulfillment centers and corporate offices to device manufacturing facilities, studio production hubs and satellites.

Typically, Sullivan’s team is the first to meet with government officials in the areas Amazon is considering.

“My team goes out and meets with government officials, and we create that pathway to jobs and investment,” she said, “so whether it be land use hearings, permitting opportunities, negotiating financial incentives, it’s creating that path to launch and being that good corporate citizen along the way.”

Sullivan’s team led the planning of a 3.2-million-square-foot robotics fulfillment center that broke ground last fall on the border between New Hanover and Pender counties. She said factors stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic had prompted the company to temporarily re-evaluate the project and where it would be located.

“That was a project that we had looked at for years previously, and then things changed. When we resurfaced it, we needed to deliver to North Carolina and South Carolina residents … and what do those different locations look like?” she said. “I will say that the forethought of Pender and New Hanover County, of having a developed industrial park with the infrastructure ready to go, really helped move the needle to ensure that this was the best location for us.”

The facility, which is expected to create 1,000 jobs, is slated for completion in mid-2026, Sullivan said.

Originally from Nashville, Sullivan began her career with the state of Tennessee, working with communities that couldn’t afford or didn’t need a full-time planning director. She helped local leaders review site plans and rezonings and coordinate with state transportation officials.

After that, she became the planning director for a county near Nashville. Eventually, she was asked to head up the region’s economic development organization, and she took the job.

“My parents and my mentors throughout my life have always said, ‘When a window opens, it’s good to walk through it,’” she said. “And so, I did, not really knowing what I was getting myself into. But it ended up really launching my career into economic development.”

After a stop leading economic development in another county just outside of Nashville, Sullivan landed in the Washington, D.C., area, becoming president and CEO of the Montgomery Business Development Corp. in Montgomery County, Maryland.

The area was notorious for not being business friendly, Sullivan said, and it was tough work trying to build consensus around job creation and retention.

A few years in, a board member told her they believed a man could do a better job and earn more respect with local policymakers than she could. That was a turning point, Sullivan said, despite having worked in the male-dominated world of economic development for years.

“I never really thought much of that because I was like, I’m just as smart, I’m just as good, I’m just as savvy,” she said. “But that led me to say, ‘I don’t think this is the job for me.’”

Sullivan updated her LinkedIn profile, letting recruiters know she was open to new roles. Within a few hours, she received a call from an Amazon recruiter, and soon she had joined the company as a senior manager of economic development.

After a few months at Amazon, Sullivan was tapped to lead the search for the company’s second corporate headquarters. Arlington, Virginia, was selected as the site for HQ2, a more than $2.5 billion investment expected to create 25,000 new jobs.

Sullivan also led Amazon’s development of an Operations Center of Excellence in Nashville, which is set to create 5,000 corporate and technology jobs, and directed the expansion of 18 North American tech hubs for the company.

Sullivan moved to Wilmington full time with her husband and daughter two years ago. After years of living in the Washington, D.C., area, Sullivan and her husband bought a historic home near downtown Wilmington in 2014, traveling back and forth to the D.C. area for work.

True to her background in economic development, Sullivan chose to relocate to Wilmington only after comparing it to other potential cities and doing her research.

“We treated ourselves like clients,” she said. “I pulled the economic data. I looked at where had a community college or a major university, a historic district, an airport and water, not necessarily an ocean, but a large body of water.”

In August 2023, the timing was right to make the move permanent.

“My team was growing on a global scale, so as long as I (could) get to an airport,” Sullivan said, “I didn’t have a large concentration of my team in one location.”

Today, her role involves traveling regularly to meet with government officials or evaluate new regions for potential investment. She’s also a member of various business and industry boards in Tennessee and Virginia.

“We have a corporate responsibility, and it’s good to be at the table, as we’re having some of those challenging conversations,” she said, “whether it be around policy or whether it be around a different investment.”

Sullivan joined the New Hanover Community Endowment’s board of directors earlier this year and said she hopes to bring an “outside” perspective to the board. The $1.6 billion fund was created from New Hanover County’s sale of New Hanover Regional Medical Center to Novant Health in 2021.

“I have a different perspective I can bring about what’s worked, what hasn’t, what other communities are doing, what we’re doing and what other companies are doing,” she said. “Hopefully that adds some value and perspective that can be complementary to the other board members.”

To view more of photographer Madeline Gray’s work, go to madelinegrayphoto.com.

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