Public service has been a defining thread throughout Ryan Bingham’s career. After serving three terms as Connecticut’s youngest elected mayor, he joined Sullivan & LeShane, Inc., where he quickly earned a reputation for forging strong relationships, finding common ground, and crafting win-win deals for clients. Today, he proudly serves as a lobbyist and the firm’s president of finance and operations. Learn more about Ryan’s work in the Q&A below:
Tell us about your day-to-day at Sullivan & LeShane.
There really isn't a typical day, which is part of why I like it. During session, I'm at the Capitol most mornings, tracking committee agendas, catching legislators between votes, communicating with our team, prepping a client to testify, and handling the other "in the building" responsibilities that come with it. The rest of the day is client calls, strategy memos, and the constant work of explaining to a company why a bill's statement of purpose sounds harmless but may be a problem on page fourteen.
The other half of my job is running the firm. I'm co-president alongside my partner, Mike Johnson, and we own the business together, so I'm also handling the financials, hiring, proposals, and making sure our six-person team has what they need. I like that balance. Advocacy work keeps you sharp on policy; running a small business keeps you honest about results.
You made Connecticut history when you were elected mayor of Torrington at age 22. What inspired you to pursue public office, and how did that experience shape the professional you are today?
I grew up in a family where public service was just what you did. It was the dinner table conversation. I was knocking on doors and waving signs from the time I was 10 years old for my grandfather, who served in the legislature for 12 years, and I carried that into helping my mother run for City Council and later serve as a state legislator herself. So the instinct was there early. But honestly, I ran because Torrington is my hometown and I could see specific things that needed fixing. At 22, you don't have much of a résumé to run on. What you have is the willingness to knock on every door and listen.
Three terms as mayor taught me things I use every single day. You learn that the budget is a moral document. You learn that a decision made in a conference room lands on a real family. And you learn to sit in a room where everyone is unhappy with you and still can find a way forward. When I'm across the table from a legislator or a mayor now, I have a pretty good sense of the pressures they're under, because I've been the one getting the calls.
Consensus-building has been a hallmark of your career. What have you learned about bringing together stakeholders with different perspectives to find solutions?
Two things, mostly. First, people's stated positions are rarely their actual interests. Someone will come in to oppose a bill outright, and three conversations later, you find out there's one section causing the heartburn and the rest is fine. If you take the opening position at face value, you negotiate against a problem that doesn't exist. Ask enough questions and the real deal is usually narrower and much more solvable than it looked. Second, never win in a way that humiliates someone. This is a small state and a small building. The person on the other side of today's issue is your partner on next year's. I'd rather get the main thing a client needs and keep that relationship intact for future sessions than burn a bridge that ends up costing the same client down the road. Don't get me wrong, we fight to the very last moment before the gavel slams at the end of the session. But there are moments where you have to hold both the short term and the long term for a client at the same time.
Your work at Sullivan & LeShane includes not only advocating for clients but also identifying opportunities for their continued growth in Connecticut. What do you find most rewarding about helping clients navigate the intersection of government and business development?
The most rewarding work is the kind you can drive past. Passing a bill is satisfying, but it's abstract. Helping a client or a community land a project that actually gets built—that's different.
A good recent example is the Borough of Naugatuck. My colleague Zach Dendas and I worked with them on Community Investment Fund applications for transit-oriented development downtown, and across two rounds they secured more than $9 million. That money becomes a real streetscape in a real downtown that people will use for decades.
The same instinct applies on the business side. Companies looking to grow in Connecticut often don't have a map of who to talk to or which door to knock on, and the state has more tools available than most of them realize. Connecting those two things—a company that wants to invest and a state that wants the investment—is the part of this job that feels least like lobbying and most like matchmaking.
What do you value most about being part of NASL?
The perspective. It's easy in this work to assume the way your state does things is the way things are done everywhere, and NASL is a fast cure for that. Comparing notes with colleagues in other states on registration thresholds, disclosure rules, and ethics requirements has made me better at counseling clients who operate in multiple jurisdictions.
I also value that it's a group of people who take the profession seriously. Lobbying gets caricatured, and the best answer to that is a network of practitioners committed to doing it the right way, transparently, ethically, and in a way that genuinely helps policymakers make better-informed decisions. Being around people who hold that standard is worth a lot.
Last, the lobbyists in NASL are an incredible resource for our clients who need help in other states. Here at Sullivan & LeShane, we know that if we refer a client to an NASL member, they'll get the best of the best, and that person will take the work just as seriously as we do here in Connecticut.
For more information about Ryan or Sullivan & LeShane, visit ctlobby.com.