Cathie Wood

Wood was born in Los Angeles, the eldest child of immigrants from Ireland. Wood's father served in the Irish Army and the United States Air Force as a radar systems engineer.[5] In 1974, Wood graduated from Notre Dame Academy in Los Angeles, an all-girls Catholic high school.[6][7] In 1981, Wood graduated summa cum laude from the University of Southern California, with a Bachelor of Science degree in finance and economics.[2] One of Wood's professors was economist Arthur Laffer, advisor to Presidents Reagan and Trump, who became Wood's mentor.[5][8]

In 1977, via her mentor Arthur Laffer, Wood got a job as an assistant economist at Capital Group, where she worked for three years.[5] In 1980, she moved to New York City to take a job at Jennison Associates as chief economist, analyst, portfolio manager and managing director. She worked there for 18 years. In the early 1980s, she debated Henry Kaufman on why she believed interest rates had peaked.[5]

In 1998, along with Lulu C. Wang, Wood co-founded Tupelo Capital Management, a hedge fund based in New York City.[5]

In 2001, she joined AllianceBernstein as chief investment officer of global thematic strategies, where she worked for 12 years, managing $5 billion. She was criticized for performing worse than the overall market during the 2007–2008 financial crisis.[5][2][9]

In 2014, after her idea for actively managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) based on disruptive innovation was deemed too risky by AllianceBernstein, Wood left the company and founded ARK Invest.[5][2][10][11] The company is named after the Ark of the Covenant; Wood was reading the One-Year Bible at the time.[12] ARK's first four ETFs were seeded with capital from Bill Hwang of Archegos Capital.[13]

Wood was named the best stock picker of 2020 by Bloomberg News editor-in-chief emeritus Matthew A. Winkler.[14]

However, her flagship ARK Innovation fund fell 24% in 2021 and, in the first quarter of 2022, it was the worst performer among equity funds covered by Morningstar, Inc.[15] In early 2022, eight other funds managed by Wood, including funds focused on financial technology and space exploration were among the worst performers in their categories.[16]

Wood was selected for the inaugural 2021 Forbes 50 Over 50; made up of entrepreneurs, leaders, scientists, and creators who are over the age of 50.[17]

Wood lives in Wilton, Connecticut.[8] She was divorced from Robert Wood, who died in 2018. She has three children.[18][19][20]

Wood is a devout Christian.[18] During the 2020 election, she warned that Joe Biden's plan of taxation and regulation would stifle innovation.[21]

In 2018, she donated funds to her high school to start the Duddy Innovation Institute, which encourages girls to study disruptive innovation.[7]