CW will push visitation, real estate options, CEO says in interview with us

We spoke with Carly Fiorina, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation's new CEO, to ask about her plans for the 100-year-old organization.

Good morning! It’s June 8. Today: Our interview with CW chief Carly Fiorina…Cardinal Ridge hearing to be put on hold, but James City County supervisors have other potentially controversial development projects to consider this week…Plus, pictures of the Project SEARCH graduation in Williamsburg and the DoG Street parade for W-JCC high school graduates.

Carly Fiorina. (Photo courtesy Colonial Williamsburg Foundation)

The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s new Chief Executive Officer says the organization will use its improving financial position -- and national visibility from America’s 250^th anniversary -- to push for more visitors and expand its brand recognition nationwide.

“It took a lot of hard work to turn the financial ship around, and we have,” Carly Fiorina told Williamsburg Watch in an interview last week. “And it means now we can really begin investing for growth.”

The Foundation, established 100 years ago by billionaire John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Bruton Parish rector W.A.R. Goodwin, has been showing improved financial performance for several years on its annual tax filing. The Foundation’s 990 statements show above average returns from its endowment investments in recent years, which combined with expense cuts increased its operating surplus to $29.3 million in 2024, the latest year for which returns are available. That return was filed last November.

CW ‘s strategic plan calls for growing visits and expanding its endowment further. Fiorina says CW must also get more profit from its large real estate holdings, which cover 1,900 acres in Williamsburg and in James City and York counties.

Fiorina, the first woman CEO of a Fortune 500 company when she ran Hewlett Packard before becoming a Republican presidential hopeful in 2016, has served on the CW board of trustees since 2017.

She was named CEO in April, when predecessor Clifford Fleet suddenly resigned for what the foundation said were personal reasons. Fiorina also serves as honorary chair of the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commission, which has been organizing statewide celebrations for the 250^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

The commission is sponsoring a two-hour live broadcast of CW’s July 4 celebrations on PBS, and “we are thinking about how we can leverage that to keep us moving forward,” Fiorina told last month’s meeting of the Williamsburg Tourism Council.