Sweet Briar names Luther Griffith VP for auxiliary enterprises

Sweet Briar College has hired Luther Griffith as vice president for auxiliary enterprises, effective Monday, May 13. A business executive with more than 25 years of experience in senior-level operational management and finance roles, Griffith will oversee The Florence Elston Inn & Conference Center, the Book Shop and summer programs and camps. He will work closely with Cathy Mays, director of hospitality, and the new Book Shop manager.

“Luther’s vast experience in managing finance and operations will be a tremendous asset to Sweet Briar — particularly as we expand and strengthen our auxiliary enterprises,” said President Meredith Woo. “I’m confident he will help us be excellent stewards of our valuable resources.”



Griffith, who holds an MBA in finance from Harvard Business School and a B.S. in economics with a minor in chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, began his long career in 1967 at Griffith Laboratories, his family’s business. In 1978, he engineered the company buyout before going to work for the insurance broker Alexander & Alexander Services as a senior executive. Toward the end of his tenure at A&A, Griffith was president of Alexander & Alexander of Georgia. His next appointments took him to Lifecore Biomedical (director and audit committee chairman, 2004-2008), Care Technologies (chairman and majority shareholder, 1995-2008), Theragenics Corporation (director and audit committee chairman, 2006-2008), SimpleC (investor, CEO, CFO, 2007-2012) and NutriTiming (partner, 2006-2016).

More recently, Griffith also has been involved as president of Griffith Resources, an angel investment firm; as a partner at Direct Hits Publishing and Hyllus Partners; as a mentor at ATDC; and as CFO and board member at Fortamus. The latter two are both affiliated with Georgia Tech.

Griffith is well-known to the Sweet Briar community, having lived on campus for several years. He has been familiar with Sweet Briar since his “prep school days,” when his oldest sibling attended the College in the 1960s. Griffith met his wife, Senior Director of Alumnae Relations and Development Claire Griffith ’80, during a Sweet Briar College Alumnae Club gathering in New York City. Since 2016, Griffith has volunteered in Sweet Briar’s Career Services Center, serving as a mentor to students. In Spring 2017, he took over temporary teaching responsibilities for three economics courses for an injured faculty member and this spring, he created the curriculum for CORE 171: Foundations of Finance, a course he also taught temporarily.

“I’m delighted to take on a more formal role at Sweet Briar College that has been part of my family life forever,” Griffith said. “I’m excited about what’s ahead for Sweet Briar, and I can’t wait to get to work.”