Martha Robinson Rivers was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the daughter of John Minott Rivers and Martha Elizabeth Robinson. She was educated at Ashley Hall in Charleston. She graduated from Vassar College with a Bachelor of Arts in history in 1957.

On October 4, 1958, she married E. Bronson Ingram II (1931–1995) at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Her husband was the son of business magnate Orrin Henry Ingram, Sr., grandson of Erskine B. Ingram, and great-grandson of Orrin Henry Ingram. They had three sons and a daughter:

Ingram was appointed by her husband as director of public affairs at Ingram Industries in 1979. After her husband’s death in 1995, she became chairman and CEO.

Ingram is the co-author of three books. Her first book was a biography of her husband published in 2001, six years after his death. In her second book, published in 2004, Ingram wrote about the performing arts scene in Nashville during the Antebellum era. She argued that it was destroyed by the American Civil War and that it never fully recovered. Her third book, published in 2006, was a biography of Kenneth Schermerhorn, the music director of the Nashville Symphony.

Ingram was a co-founder of the Schermerhorn Symphony Center which opened in 2005. She formerly served as Chairman of the Board of Trust of Vanderbilt University in Nashville. The Vanderbilt Blair School of Music has been the recipient of $300 million of Ingram company stock.

Ingram was named in Business Week as the 50th most generous philanthropist, for her donations from 2000 to 2004. In 2006 she was honored by the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee as the 2006 recipient of the 13th Annual Joe Kraft Humanitarian Award for her philanthropic efforts. She received the Eli & Edythe Broad Award for Philanthropy in the Arts.

In 2015, Ingram donated to Democratic candidate Megan Barry’s campaign to become the new Mayor of Nashville.