Robert M. Balentine

Atlanta, Georgia

Robert Balentine is chairman and CEO of Balentine, an Atlanta-based wealth management firm. He was elected to the Garden Conservancy board of directors in June 2015. An inveterate, dirt-under-the-fingernails gardener with a rosarian as his father and Garden Club of America horticulture judge as his mother, Robert’s love of the natural world developed at an early age. Years spent hiking and camping as an Eagle Scout made him especially keen about the flora and fauna of the Appalachian highlands.

Robert founded the Southern Highlands Reserve, a nationally recognized native plant arboretum and research center in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina, in 2002. He has also held many other leadership positions in his community, including founding president of the Southeastern Horticultural Society and chairman of the board of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. He is past president of the Rotary Club of Atlanta and a graduate of Washington & Lee University, where he served as a trustee for nearly a decade. Among other civic and business honors, he received the 2013 Business Person of the Year Lifetime Achievement award from the Metro Atlanta Chamber. His wife, Betty, shares his passion for gardening and is a past president of her GCA club in Atlanta.

Read more about Robert and Betty Balentine in our May 2017 Fellows Focus.