Philanthropist and businesswoman Martha Ingram dies at age 90

Nashville businesswoman, philanthropist and arts advocate Martha Rivers Ingram has died at age 90. The Charleston native became CEO of her husband’s collection of businesses, Ingram Industries, after his death.

Ingram was one of the city’s most prominent movers and shakers and one of the wealthiest Tennesseans. She was a billionaire with a deep love of the arts and deep pockets for arts organizations. 

In the 1970s, Ingram organized a group of wealthy women from across the state to press legislators into action for the arts. Her efforts created the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, now known as TPAC. Ingram led the boards of the Nashville Symphony and Vanderbilt University at pivotal moments for those institutions. 

Ingram rarely gave interviews, but in 2004, when she published a book on the history of the arts in Nashville, she sat down with WPLN’s Rebecca Bain for a pair of feature stories that aired on public radio. She talked about falling in love with the fine arts as a student at Vassar College and the creation of TPAC.

She also related that both her father and her husband asked her to be ready to take over their family businesses when they died. Both men ended up passing away at relatively young ages, leaving her to step in. When she became CEO of Ingram Industries — which includes Ingram Book Group, Ingram Marine Group, and Ingram Insurance Group — she became boss to roughly 15,000 people. 

“I think that what I was good at was letting the people that knew how to do things do it the way they thought it should be done — unless it just seemed bizarre and crazy,” Ingram said in the interview.

She spun off the computer distribution business and sold Ingram Entertainment to her son David. She was inducted into the Global Business Hall of Fame in 1999.

“I learned to love it. I learned that it was a lot of fun, and I love the, the challenge of it,” she said in 2004. “I like winning. I like the idea of the challenge and trying to achieve the goals.”

This year, Forbes ranked Ingram as the fourth wealthiest person in Tennessee with a net worth of $5.8 billion.

Multiple tributes to Ingram are being offered on social media from the business and arts communities. Among the first was a statement from TPAC, that read in part:

“Martha Ingram leaves behind a legacy that cannot be measured simply by what she built, but by the countless lives she changed through her vision and generosity. TPAC exists because she believed our community deserved a home for the performing arts, and her leadership made that vision a reality.”

Former Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen also paid tribute: