The Woodruff Arts Center

The Center operates a unified endowment pool that allocates on behalf of all three divisions — the High Museum of Art, the Alliance Theatre, and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra — under one investment committee and one investment policy statement. This pooled structure gives each division access to the same institutional asset allocation, committee expertise, and fee schedules they likely could not negotiate independently.

Paul E. Viera, CEO of Atlanta-based institutional asset manager EARNEST Partners, serves as an investment committee member. Board financial oversight is anchored by Governing Board Chair Kathy N. Waller, former CFO of The Coca-Cola Company, and trustee Richard McPhail, CFO of The Home Depot. The committee draws directly from Atlanta's public-company treasury leadership.

Yes. The Center owns the Memorial Arts Building, the High Museum of Art structures, and the Goizueta Stage for Youth & Families at its 1280 Peachtree Street campus in Midtown Atlanta — a commercially valued real-estate concentration. The High Museum's permanent collection and the Samuel H. Kress Collection represent additional stores of value not reflected in standard endowment accounting.

The Robert W. Woodruff Foundation was a founding supporter and continues to provide significant philanthropic grants to the Center. It is distinct from the Center's own endowment — the Foundation makes grants into the operating budget and capital campaigns, while the Center's investment committee separately manages the endowment portfolio.

The Center's investment committee, not an external OCIO, governs allocation decisions. Committee membership includes the CEO of EARNEST Partners, suggesting oversight by investment professionals who manage institutional capital externally. Specific mandates and manager relationships are not publicly disclosed.

Beyond the endowment distribution, revenue sources include ticket sales across the Alliance Theatre and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, High Museum admissions and memberships, foundation grants from entities including the PNC Foundation and Goizueta Foundation, and facility rentals on the Peachtree Street campus.

The Center's namesake Robert W. Woodruff was Coca-Cola's president from 1923 to 1954 and chairman until 1984. Coca-Cola's corporate and philanthropic ecosystem — including the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation and former CFO Kathy N. Waller's board chairmanship — has sustained the Center since its 1968 founding, but no equity ownership relationship exists.