“Virginia Hepner, CEO and president of the Woodruff Arts Center, and a leader who guided the arts organization through a successful $110 million ‘transformative’ campaign, announced Friday she will leave the Woodruff next spring,” writes Bo Emerson in Saturday’s (11/12) Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “That day, May 31, 2017, will mark five years since Hepner took the reins at the Woodruff, an organization that includes the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Alliance Theatre and the High Museum of Art. The summer of 2012, when Hepner arrived, was … marked by bitter labor disputes with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and a Woodruff management thunderstruck that an employee had embezzled $1 million. Hepner came on board after a 25-year career in banking and began straightening out those numbers. She also presided over the appointment of new leadership at the arts center, as Rand Suffolk became the new director of the High Museum and Jennifer Barlament the new executive director of the symphony.… ‘Virginia Hepner has done a tremendous job of leading the Arts Center over the last four-plus years,’ said [Woodruff Chairman] Doug Hertz.” Hepner, 59, “said she has no plans beyond working from now until May 31 to get the center’s ducks in a row.”
Posted November 14, 2016
