Martha R. Ingram

Martha Rivers Ingram is the Chairman Emerita of the Board of Directors of Ingram Industries Inc., one of America’s largest privately held companies. Ingram Industries includes Ingram Marine Group and Ingram Content Group, which are leaders respectively in the inland marine and book industries.

Mrs. Ingram is a member of the Ingram Industries board and served as its Chairman from 1995 to 2008. She is a former Chairman and Director of the Board of Ingram Micro Inc., the world’s largest technology distributor, and she also previously served for many years on the boards of directors of Weyerhaeuser Company, Baxter International and Regions Financial Corp.

In addition to her roles in business, Martha Ingram has been widely recognized as a leader in educational and civic organizations and the arts.

She is Chairman of the Board of Trust of Vanderbilt University in Nashville. She is a past chairman of the Nashville Symphony Association board of directors and was vice chairman of the campaign to develop Schermerhorn Symphony Center, the orchestra’s spectacular new home in downtown Nashville. She continues to serve on the Nashville Symphony board.

A native of Charleston, South Carolina, Mrs. Ingram is the current Chairman of the board of the Spoleto Festival. She also serves on the boards of the Tennessee Repertory Theatre and the Nashville Opera Association, and she chairs The KeyBoard for Vanderbilt’s Blair School of Music. She is a member of the Advisory Council of the Nashville Ballet and a former member of the advisory board of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. She received a special award from the Kennedy Center in 2005 for lifetime accomplishments.

In 1999, Mrs. Ingram received the prestigious “Mary Harriman Award” from the Association of Junior Leagues International. She was inducted into Junior Achievement’s National Business Hall of Fame and also the South Carolina Business Hall of Fame. The Business Committee for the Arts Inc. bestowed its national “Leadership Award” on her that year.

In 2001, she was named “Tennessean of the Year” by The Tennessean newspaper, in recognition of her philanthropy and leadership in the state’s business and cultural life. She was the guiding force in the creation of the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, where she continues to serve as a board member, and she chaired the 1996 Tennessee Bicentennial Commission.

In 2006, she published Kenneth Schermerhorn: He Will Always Be the Music, a biography of the late conductor and music director of The Nashville Symphony.  Mrs. Ingram and D.B. Kellogg in 2004 published Apollo’s Struggle: A Performing Arts Odyssey in the Athens of the South, Nashville, Tennessee, a history of the arts in Nashville and the South.  In 2001 she published a family memoir entitled E. Bronson Ingram: Complete These Unfinished Tasks of Mine, the story of her late husband.   

A 1957 graduate of Vassar College, Mrs. Ingram served on Vassar’s board of trustees from 1993 to 2005. She is a former board member of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, Harpeth Hall School in Nashville, and Ashley Hall School in Charleston, South Carolina. She has served on the boards of the United Way of Nashville and Middle Tennessee and was chairman of the United Way’s Alexis de Tocqueville Society. She also serves as a member of the advisory board of INROADS/Nashville.