Cathy Leonhardt

Cathy Leonhardt is a Managing Director and Co-Head of PJ SOLOMON’s Global Consumer Retail Group. She joined the Firm in 2003.

Regarded as an innovative thought leader with deep industry knowledge, Ms. Leonhardt is a trusted advisor to established and emerging retailing, consumer-branded and apparel companies. As an industry leader, Cathy regularly discusses trends in the retailing sector including for CNBC, Bloomberg, Yahoo! Finance and WWD.

From visionary entrepreneurs to large public companies, she has advised a range of clients on important domestic and cross-border transactions throughout her 20-year career, including OpCapita’s recent acquisition of specialty retailer maurices, Groupe Rocher’s acquisition of Arbonne, PVH’s acquisitions of Tommy Hilfiger and Warnaco Group, Bare Necessities on its sale to Walmart, and Athleta on its sale to The Gap.

Additionally, Ms. Leonhardt has advised Kering, Moose Knuckles, The Jones Group, Quicksilver, Fred’s Inc. on its announced sale of 185 Store’s Pharmacy Prescription Files to Walgreens, TA Associates on its investment in Dutch LLC, PPR on its sale of The Sportsman’s Guide and OneStopPlus, Ariat International on its expanded partnership with the Fisher family, Deckers on its acquisition of Sanuk, PPR on its acquisition of Volcom, PVH Corp. in its acquisition of Superba Inc., Kate Spade LLC in its sale to Liz Claiborne, J. Jill in its sale to Talbots, May in its merger with Federated, Loehmann’s in its sale to Crescent Capital Investments, and Barneys in its sale to Jones Apparel Group.

Prior to joining PJ SOLOMON, Ms. Leonhardt was a Vice President at Morgan Stanley. While there, she advised on Sears’ acquisition of Land’s End, Tommy Hilfiger Corporation’s acquisition of Tommy Europe, Jones Apparel’s acquisition of McNaughton, merger of Monsanto and Pharmacia, Georgia-Pacific’s spin-off of The Timber Company to Plum Creek, and the sale of Donna Karan’s beauty business to Estée Lauder. Ms. Leonhardt began her career at Wachovia as an officer in the US Corporate Banking Group.