As a teen, he lived in Valencia, Spain, when his father was president of Oscar Mayer Europe[1] and finished his senior year of high school there, even after his parents moved to Chicago.
He returned to the US after high school and graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1983 with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
[2] After college, Lillie worked in the human-resources departments of Sun Electric and was a labor negotiator and HR generalist at the CECO corporation.
[5] Lillie is Vice Chairman and a Partner at Mariposa Capital, a private family office based in Miami Beach, Florida, and sits on the Board of Directors of Royal Oak Enterprises, a private investment asset of Mariposa Capital.
[12] Lillie and his wife, Lisa Sheffield-Lillie established a Great People Scholarship at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2012.
As Lillie explained, "By partnering with the University of Wisconsin we are making scholarship dollars initially available for students at the Madison campus.