The 2025 Oglethorpe Liberal Arts and Sciences Symposium (LASS) lecture will be delivered by Hala Moddelmog, longtime Atlanta community leader and president and CEO of the Woodruff Arts Center.
She will speak at 1 p.m., April 16, in Lupton Auditorium.
LASS is the annual event that brings together Oglethorpe University students and faculty in a celebration of exemplary scholarly work produced by the students under faculty mentorship. The symposium’s sessions provide a forum for students and faculty to present, discuss and learn from outstanding student endeavors.
Panels, roundtables, oral and poster presentations, art exhibitions, and scholarly music presentations showcase Oglethorpe’s liberal arts curriculum as well as science, technology and math research.
“LASS is one of the highlights of the academic year at Oglethorpe, and Hala Moddelmog is an embodiment of the intellectual pursuits that are on display during the week,” said Gabriel Barreneche, Oglethorpe provost. “Her leadership comes from a well-rounded background in business and study in the liberal arts. Our students have much to gain from her insight and experience.”
Moddelmog will complement the LASS student presentations and performances April 14-17 by speaking about the foundation liberal arts education lays for successful leadership. She began her academic pursuits by earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Georgia Southern University.
She went on to earn a Master of Arts degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of Georgia and has attended executive education programs on board leadership and director development at Harvard Business School and the Kellogg School of Management. In 2007, Georgia Southern University awarded her an Honorary Doctorate of Letters.
With that foundation, Moddelmog spent 30 years in president and CEO roles, as well as serving as a corporate director for four New York Stock Exchange companies and a Carlyle Group private portfolio company board. She has worked in Atlanta for the majority of her career becoming president and CEO of the Woodruff Arts Center in September 2020 after serving almost six years as the first female president and CEO of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce.
Prior to that role, Moddelmog was President of Atlanta-based Arby’s Restaurant Group, then a division of the Wendy’s Arby’s Group. Previously, Moddelmog served as President and CEO of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the world’s largest breast cancer organization. Under her leadership, Komen achieved its first Four-Star Charity Navigator rating. From 1995 to 2004, Moddelmog was the first female president of an international QSR chain at Church’s Chicken, leading the brand through a complete transformation.
Moddelmog has spent more than a decade in volunteer leadership at the Woodruff Arts Center, having served on the Arts Center’s Governing Board since 2017 and the Arts Center’s Board of Trustees since 2011. She also served on the Alliance Theatre Board of Directors from 2011 to 2020 and led the Alliance Theatre Board as Co-Chair from 2017 to 2019.
Moddelmog serves as a director on the boards of Corpay (NYSE:CPAY) and Lamb Weston (NYSE:LW). Her service in Atlanta’s nonprofit community includes the Executive Committee of Midtown Alliance and the Board of Trustees of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, where she chairs the Quality Committee.
