By Elizabeth Jenkins
Though his title is Chairman of Ingram Industries, John R. Ingram (MBA’86), thinks Chief Innovation Officer, Chief Aggravation Officer and Cheerleader better describe his role. “Some combination of innovation, agitation, and cheerleading is what I do most,” says Ingram, who earned his undergraduate degree from Princeton University before returning home to Nashville to attend Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management.
John Ingram shakes hands with Leo Messi at the 2023 Leagues Cup finals (Photo permission: NBJ)
“I really try to think about what’s next, and what we can do better to grow and prosper,” the two-term Vanderbilt trustee explains. Since joining his family business in 1986, Ingram has carried on the legacy of entrepreneurship that began several generations before. Over the past century, the Ingrams’ interests have ranged from barging to books, lumber to oil, microcomputing to soccer. “I’ve come to understand that what I really am is an entrepreneur; I just work at a family business,” he says.
The idea of making soccer part of his family’s portfolio is less random than it may seem. While working in Belgium in the mid-nineties, Ingram saw firsthand how the sport united countries all over Europe. “In Brussels, when the national team played, the country shut down,” he recalls. “Literally everybody was watching.” Then, in 2015, Ingram attended a Premier League match with the youngest of his four children, which renewed his interest in the game.
By then, efforts were already underway to make soccer the next professional sport in Music City, which had been awarded both an NFL and NHL franchise in the late 1990’s. Vanderbilt alum Bill Hagerty, BA’81, JD’84, who is now a United States Senator, was the chairman of the Tennessee Department of Economic & Community Development at the time, and it was Hagerty who got the literal ball rolling. His office conducted research that compared the demographics of Nashville to the other cities competing for the next Major League Soccer franchise.
“The work they did showed that although Nashville was one of the smaller cities being considered, it was also mighty in some important ways,” explains Ingram, “like per capita income and the growth of up-and-coming young entrepreneurs and businesspeople, who tend to make up the core of the soccer fans in the United States.” Ingram was adamant that if Nashville were to lure an expansion team, they play near downtown. “The tag line I used during the process was that I wanted to do this in Nashville, with Nashville, and for Nashville,” says Ingram, who believed the Fairgrounds were the ideal place to build an arena. After winning the bid in 2017, construction began on GEODIS Park, the future home of Nashville SC and the largest soccer-specific stadium in the country.
John Ingram with Candice Storey Lee, Vice Chancellor for Athletics & University Affairs, Athletics Director at Vanderbilt University. Photo by Karlee Sell.
Since then, Ingram, in partnership with MarketStreet Enterprises—which is led by Owen adjunct professor Dirk Melton and Jay Turner, BA’92, JD’99—has helped develop the real estate adjacent to the stadium in the Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood. The area has seen tremendous growth, attracting restaurants, breweries, and retail stores. During breaks in the soccer season, the stadium also hosts events and concerts. One project Ingram is particularly proud of is 445 Park Commons, a mixed-use space with 335 apartments, 120 of which are considered affordable housing.
“My mother, Martha, is the patron saint of arts here in Nashville,” says Ingram. “Projects like the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, which is one of her big gifts to Nashville, would never have happened without her help,” he says. “I would like to believe that bringing soccer and building GEODIS Park is my own gift to Nashville. I promise I have done this as much with my heart as with my wallet,” says Ingram.
Vanderbilt Athletics are also close to Ingram’s heart, having attended football and basketball games since he was a little boy, and baseball as an adult. The combination of his passion for the university and his acute business acumen made him the perfect person to chair Vanderbilt Athletics’ efforts during the Shape the Future campaign, which raised more than $50 million to help upgrade Memorial Gymnasium and Hawkins Field. “Vandy sports are part of me,” he says. “I always knew that if I were fortunate enough to be involved and help make a difference, I would try.” In 2022, as part of Vandy United, he founded the Ingram Center for Student-Athlete Success to foster Commodores’ personal development. “It is important to me that the University come alongside our athletes, so that by the time they are finished here, they are ready to take the next step,” he says, “and that they go as stronger, more resilient, more self-aware versions of themselves.”
Ingram credits business school for teaching him important skills needed to succeed as an entrepreneur.
“Owen was fantastic in terms of helping me put more tools in the toolbox, so to speak,” he says. “I am proud of my MBA from Vanderbilt. It was a great experience for me.”
Ingram believes entrepreneurship is going to become even more of a priority for business schools like Owen as AI continues to evolve. “I don’t know if you can teach somebody to be an entrepreneur,” he says, “but you can give them tools for the things they need to be good, at like finance, accounting, raising money, and how to put together a Board.”
John Ingram is pleased to see more entrepreneurial activity going on in Nashville today than ever before. He thinks the pandemic freed us of the idea that you have to live in New York City or Silicon Valley to start a business. Instead, you can live in Nashville and have a much nicer quality of life. “The best thing we can do in Nashville, or at Vanderbilt, is create an environment where people want to come here to start stuff, and to actively think about how to keep them here,” he says. “Why choose Nashville, Tennessee, over other places? That’s the question for us to answer.”