Board of Visitors

William (Bill) Schwartz is a senior adviser with Wilmington Trust and has been a banker in Atlanta since 1976. He is vice chairman and treasurer of The Chatham Valley Foundation, chairman of the Camp Sunshine Supporting Fund Inc., vice president of the American Jewish Committee Atlanta Region and a former board member of several organizations, most recently the Anti-Defamation League Southern Region and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Foundation. From 1979 to 1981, he was a member of The President’s Commission on Executive Exchange at The White House as well as Special Ambassador of the United States to the Inauguration of the President of Colombia in 1980. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Stacey Y. Abrams is the House Minority Leader for the Georgia General Assembly and State Representative the for 89th House District and a partner in several entrepreneurial ventures. She earned a B.A. in interdisciplinary studies from Spelman College. A graduate of the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin with an M.P.Aff. in public policy, she received her J.D. from Yale Law School.

Susanna L. Baxter has been president of the Georgia Independent College Association since August 2010. Prior to coming to GICA, she served as the chief operating officer for the Tennessee Independent Colleges and Universities Association for 10 years. She worked as the dean of students at Barton College in North Carolina before beginning her association work. Baxter earned her B.A. in both religion and Christian education from Pfeiffer University. She went on to earn both her M.Ed. and Ed.D. in higher education leadership and policy from Vanderbilt University.

Elizabeth Blake serves as an advisor to C432 - Closing the Gap, a Canadian company working to develop job creation projects in Haiti. She retired from Habitat for Humanity International in 2014, after nine years serving as senior vice president for advocacy, government affairs and general counsel. She founded and continues to lead the Haiti Property Law Working Group; serves on the board of the National Association of Realtors, the International Women’s Forum – Atlanta, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and The Carter Center Board of Councilors, where she is vice chairman; and is a director of Green Brick Partners, Inc. She graduated from Smith College, earned an M.B.A. from the University of Virginia and received her J.D. from Columbia University School of Law.

Rebecca Blalock is the senior vice president and chief information officer at Southern Company. She serves on the Leadership Atlanta Board of Trustees and the CIO advisory boards for Oracle and Sierra Ventures.

Susan Bolch is Secretary of RaceTrac Petroleum and serves on the Board of Directors.  She serves on the Board of Directors for Camp Sunshine, as a trustee of The Boys and Girls Club of Collier County  and on the Advisory Board of the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke University.  Bolch received her B.A. from Barnard College of Columbia University and her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center.

Ann Wilson Cramer, who graduated from Salem College with a degree in mathematics, is a senior consultant with Coxe Curry & Associates. She retired from a long and successful career at the IBM Corporation, where she started as a systems engineer in Jacksonville and retired as its director for IBM Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs for the Americas. Cramer currently serves as chair of the Atlanta Partners for Education and is on the boards of the Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta, the Metro Atlanta Chamber Education Committee, the Governor’s Office of Workforce Development and the Georgia Public Education Foundation. 

Elise Eplan is the principal in The Eplan Group, a firm that advises philanthropic organizations. Prior to her consulting work, Eplan was vice president for special initiatives at The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, which was created by the co-founder of The Home Depot and owner of the Atlanta Falcons. Eplan was the founding president of Hands On Atlanta, and she now serves on its Advisory Board. Eplan received her undergraduate degree in American studies from Brandeis University and her masters in public and private management from Yale University.

J. Rex Fuqua is executive chairman of Fuqua Capital, an Atlanta-based private investment firm. He is also president of the J.B. Fuqua Foundation and Realan Foundation. He is a trustee emeritus of Duke University and serves on the Board of Visitors of the Fuqua School of Business at Duke. He is the former chairman and lifetime trustee of the Atlanta Botanical Garden. Fuqua has been on the boards of many nonprofit organizations. He is a graduate of the University of Georgia.

Susan Grant, a Vassar College graduate, was previously executive vice president of CNN News Services. She is vice chairman of the Morehouse School of Medicine Board of Trustees, vice chair of Heifer International and on the boards of the Advisory Council of CHRIS Kids, the Grady Health Foundation Ambassador Force and Leadership Atlanta, where she was a member of the 2006 class. Women in Technology named her one of its Women of the Year in Technology in 2006; the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation gave her a First Amendment Service Award in 2008; and in 2013, she received Womenetics’ POW! Award and New Trier High School’s Alumni Achievement Award.

Laura Hardman serves on the Board of Trustees at Emory University, where she earned her degree, and on the board of directors of the North Carolina Outward Bound School. She works with many Atlanta nonprofit organizations such as the Coca-Cola Scholars Program and the Atlanta Committee for Public Education.

Virginia A. Hepner is the former president and chief executive officer of the Woodruff Arts Center. A former corporate banker with Wachovia, she had a 25-year career with the firm. She is a director of State Bank & Trust Company, State Bank Financial Corporation and Oxford Industries, Inc. She also serves on the boards of the Metro Atlanta Chamber, Midtown Alliance, Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau, Penn Institute for Urban Research, The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta Endowment Board, the Service Advisory Board for City of Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and the Scheller College of Business Advisory Board at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Hepner holds a bachelor's degree in finance from The Wharton School and attended the J.L. Kellogg Graduate Business School of Management at Northwestern University.

Douglas Hertz, president and CEO of United Distributors, serves as a trustee for the Woodruff Arts Center and is president of The Marcus Foundation among several other board memberships and appointments. Involved in numerous fundraising ventures for special-needs children, Hertz founded Camp Twin Lakes for disadvantaged children. In 2009, he received the Business to Business Philanthropist of the Year award.

Douglas Hooker is executive director of the Atlanta Regional Commission. A graduate of Leadership Atlanta, Leadership Georgia, the Regional Leadership Institute and the Institute for Georgia Environmental Leadership, he was a co-founder and board member of the Civic League for Regional Atlanta and serves on the boards of the Council for Quality Growth, CHRIS Kids and The Atlanta Opera. He earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Georgia Tech as well as an M.B.A. from Emory University.

Steve Leeds is a principal with Sustainability Consultants LLC and a founding partner of the law firm Rogers & Hardin LLC, which specializes in commercial real estate practice. In addition, he frequently serves as a senior advisor to political candidates. From 2009 to 2012, as a political appointee, he served as special counselor to the administrator of the General Services Administration. He is a board member of the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance, Grants to Green and the United States Green Building Council Georgia. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University and a J.D. from the University of Michigan School of Law.

Stefanie Miller is the global vice president, Strategic Partnership Marketing for The Coca-Cola Company. Miller joined The Coca-Cola Company in 1997 as an associate manager in the National Consumer Marketing department, where she led the development of programs to build brand imagery and consumption for new product launches. Miller serves as a steering committee member on the World Travel and Tourism Committee (WTTC), one of the world’s largest industries, supporting 255MM jobs and generating 9% of global GDP. Additionally, she is a member and serves on the Advocacy Committee of the Board of Director’s Network, whose mission is to increase the number of women in executive leadership and on corporate boards. Miller is an active board member and past President of Variety of Georgia, which helps at-risks children with medical and educational needs.

Mary Ann Peters has been CEO of The Carter Center since Sept. 1, 2014. As CEO, Ambassador Peters provides vision and leadership for The Carter Center and oversees program implementation and operations. She was provost of the U.S. Naval War College from 2008 to 2014. Previously, she served as dean of academics at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. Ambassador Peters spent more than 30 years as a career diplomat. From 2000 to 2003, she served as U.S. Ambassador to Bangladesh, leading the Embassy response to the September 11 attack. She is a graduate of Santa Clara University and holds an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Scarlet Pressley-Brown is the interim chair of SCLC/Women, Inc., maintaining programs and projects designed to empower less fortunate women, girls and families. Prior, Pressley-Brown served as a loaned executive (from Delta) to the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in the role of vice president of strategic partnerships. She previously served as the director of external affairs and community relations at Delta Air Lines and vice president of the Delta Air Lines Foundation. Pressley-Brown spent six years with the East Lake Community Foundation as director of community affairs. She received her B.A. in communication from Oglethorpe University and her M.B.A. from University of Phoenix and is on the board of directors for the Alliance Theatre, Atlanta Medical Association, Georgia Center for Child Advocacy and the Advisory Council of Ron Clark Academy. Pressley-Brown is a member of the Buckhead-Cascade Links and National Coalition of 100 Black Women.

Roger K. Quillen is the managing partner and chairman of Fisher & Phillips LLP, a national labor and employment law firm with 27 offices and 275 attorneys across the U.S. He has received repeat recognition as a "Georgia Super Lawyer" and a Georgia "Legal Elite" and is listed in The Best Lawyers in America. In 2012, Human Resource Executive magazine named him one of “The Top 100 Most Powerful Employment Attorneys” in the United States for the fourth year in a row. He graduated from The Ohio State University College of Law with honors in 1980. He also holds a master of science from Purdue University and two bachelor’s degrees from The Ohio State University.

Valerie Montgomery Rice is the sixth president of Morehouse School of Medicine and the first woman to lead the freestanding medical institution. In addition to president, she also retains the deanship. A renowned infertility specialist and researcher, she is the founder and former director of the Center for Women's Health Research at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn,, one of the nation's first research centers devoted to studying diseases that disproportionally impact women of color. Prior to joining Meharry Medical College, Montgomery Rice held numerous administrative and faculty appointments at the University of Kansas School of Medicine. She holds a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a medical degree from Harvard Medical School. She completed her residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Emory University School of Medicine and her fellowship in reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Hutzel Hospital in Detroit, Mich.

Deborah J. Richardson is a nationally recognized leader on social justice for women and girls and an advocate against child sex trafficking. She is currently serving as executive director for the National Center for Civil and Human Rights' International Human Trafficking Institute. Prior to joining the center, she was chief program officer at Women’s Funding Network in San Francisco. A native Atlantan, Richardson was the CEO of The Atlanta Women’s Foundation (AWF), director of program development for Fulton County Juvenile Court, founding executive director of the Juvenile Justice Fund and managing director of the National Black Arts Festival.

Jeffrey Rosensweig is the director of the Global Perspectives Program at Goizueta Business School of Emory University. Previously, he served for six years as an associate dean. He received a master's degree in philosophy, politics and economics as a result of two years of study at Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar. Nonprofit organizations that he helps develop, as a keynote speaker and/or board member, include Medical Assistance Program (MAP) International, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, the American Cancer Society and CARE, as well as various economic development groups.

Ingrid Saunders Jones was senior vice president of The Coca-Cola Company where she led the global community engagement function of the company, Global Community Connections. She serves on several of the Coca-Cola Foundation boards and that of Clark University, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and The Ohio State University President’s Council on Women. She is a Michigan State graduate and received her master’s at Eastern Michigan University.

Sue Sehgal is a New York Times best-selling author and has published five books, including "A Bucket of Blessings," the foreword of which is written by Maya Angelou.  The book was adapted for a stage production at the Alliance Theatre and was selected as a part of the Mayor’s Summer Reading Club.  "The Wheels on the Tuk Tuk" was selected as "A Book All Young Georgians Should Read" by the Georgia Center for the Book. All books are published by Simon & Schuster--“Festival of Colors," "Thread of Love" and "P is for Poppadoms" (forthcoming). She was a Commissioner for the Georgia Professional Standards Commission and served as a university professor for many years. She serves on Georgia Institute of Technology's Commission for Creating the Next in Education, the President’s Advisory Board at Oglethorpe University, the Board of Trustees of Quality Care for Children and the Board of Directors of Alliance Theatre-Woodruff Arts Center.

Doug Shipman is chief executive officer and managing director in the Atlanta headquarters of BrightHouse, a division of the Boston Consulting Group. BrightHouse specializes in issues of purpose, social impact and creativity. Shipman was most recently the founding CEO of the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, overseeing all aspects of the development and 2014 launch including leading the $100 million fundraising effort. Prior to launching the Center, Shipman was a principal with BCG working in the New York, Mumbai and Atlanta offices. He is a recognized speaker on the topics of human rights, social movements and diversity. Shipman attained degrees from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and the Harvard Divinity School. He also has a bachelor's degree in economics and political science from Emory University.

Bolling P. Spalding co-founded the Jackson-Spalding Communications public relations firm in 1995. He began his career as a reporter at The Atlanta Journal and then joined Bank South Corporation as senior vice president and director of public affairs and communications. An Atlanta native, Spalding is a trustee of the Lettie Pate Whitehead Foundation and the Georgia Press Educational Foundation and a director of the Midtown Alliance, Our Lady of Perpetual Help Cancer Home and the MillionMile Greenway. He earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Georgetown University and a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a master’s degree in business administration, both from the University of Georgia.

Tony Sundermeier is the senior pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta. Earlier he was associate pastor at the Westminster Presbyterian Church and lead pastor for the First Presbyterian Church of Allentown, both in Pennsylvania. He holds a B.A. in theology and philosophy from Eastern University, an M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary and a doctorate in missional leadership from Biblical Theological Seminary.

Oliver "Ollie" Wagner is Senior Pastor of Alpharetta Presbyterian in Alpharetta, Georgia.  He is a Davidson College graduate and a graduate of Union Presbyterian Theological Seminary and Columbia Theological Seminary. Ollie is married to Heather and they have three children.

Sue Sigmon Williams is a retired singer and teacher who has experience and continuing interest in education and the arts. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a B.A. in English and of Georgia State University with an M.M. in vocal performance. She currently serves on the Board of Visitors of Duke Divinity School, Board of Directors of Columbia Theological Seminary and Board of Directors of ArtsATL and maintains close ties with the Woodruff Arts Center. She is an Elder at Trinity Presbyterian Church.