Joe Bankoff, president & chief executive officer of the Woodruff Arts Center will be the featured speaker in an event tied to Georgia Tech's strategic planning process. He will offer his perspective on "Georgia Tech's Future Impact on Atlanta and the World."

About Joe Bankoff:
Joseph R. Bankoff joined the Woodruff Arts Center in September 2006 as president and CEO. He has been an active part of the Atlanta arts community for many years. He worked to raise funds for Atlanta Arts Alliance (original name of the Woodruff Arts Center) and the 1983 expansion of the High Museum. The Strategic Plan that he instituted at the Woodruff Arts Center sparked a Master Plan, adopted in 2009, that maps the future of the Center's performance and education facilities.

As vice-chair of the ASO Board, Joe participated in long-range planning and chaired the search committee that pioneered a creative partnership approach that attracted Robert Spano and Donald Runnicles to Atlanta. More recently, he served as a member of the regional effort to strategically plan to strengthen arts throughout the metro region.

Before Joe joined the Woodruff, he was a senior partner of one of Atlanta's largest and most prestigious law firms, King & Spalding. He is an experienced trial lawyer with more than 25 years experience in various technology and communication disputes and contracts. Joe has wide litigation experience in patent, copyright, trade secret, media and technology-related matters.

Joe has served on the Governor's Telecommunications and Technology Task Force. He recently led an Advisory Committee to the Georgia Joint House-Senate Committee on Emerging Communications Technologies drafting legislation adopted in the current session. 

Joe earned his B.S. degree from Purdue University and his J.D. degree from the University of Illinois. In 1992, he visited at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Patent, Copyright and Competition Law in Munich, Germany.