Ryman Hospitality CEO Colin Reed to Step Down After 21 Years

Ryman Hospitality Properties — the company which controls the Ryman Auditorium along with the Grand Ole Opry and its radio and physical homes, WSM 650 AM and the Grand Ole Opry House, respectively — announced Tuesday that CEO Colin Reed will leave his role at the end of 2022 after 21 years atop the company.

Reed will become executive chairman Jan. 1, 2023, and will be succeeded as CEO by current president Mark Fioravanti,

Reed joined Ryman Hospitality’s predecessor company Gaylord Entertainment in 2001 and led the company through a transition to focus solely on its hospitality ventures, selling off numerous other entities including record labels, song publishing companies, websites and a 20 percent ownership stake in the NHL’s Nashville Predators, while retaining its hotel properties — including the flagship Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center in Nashville — and its Opry-connected ventures. The company also owns Blake Shelton’s Ol’ Red bars in Nashville, Orlando, Gatlinburg, Tenn. and Tishomingo, Okla., along with the Block 21 complex of venues in Austin, Texas.

Reed led the company through the devastating 2010 Cumberland River flood in Nashville that inundated the hotel and steered the company through the challenges faced when Metro Nashville opened the city-owned Music City Center convention center, which created a publicly-funded competitor for Nashville’s convention business, which had been dominated by Opryland for decades.

Fioravanti joined the company in 2002 and has served as senior vice president of sales and marketing for Gaylord Entertainment; president of Gaylord Entertainment’s subsidiary ResortQuest and SVP and treasurer of Gaylord Entertainment. Fioravanti took on oversight of Finance in 2008 and was promoted to SVP and Chief Financial Officer in 2009.

He served as the Company’s executive vice president and CFO from 2011 to 2015 and he was named President and CFO in 2015.