Catherine Duddy Wood (born November 26, 1955) is an American investor and the founder,

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

and

CIO CIO may refer to: Organizations * Central Imagery Office, a predecessor of the American National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency * Central Intelligence Office, the national intelligence agency of the former Republic of Vietnam * Central Intellige ...

of Ark Invest, an

investment management Investment management is the professional asset management of various securities, including shareholdings, bonds, and other assets, such as real estate, to meet specified investment goals for the benefit of investors. Investors may be institut ...

firm.

Early life and education

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. In 1974, Wood graduated from Notre Dame Academy in Los Angeles, an all-girls Catholic high school. In 1981, Wood graduated ''summa cum laude'' from the University of Southern California, with a Bachelor of Science degree in

finance Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fina ...

and economics. One of Wood's professors was economist Arthur Laffer, who became Wood's mentor.

Career

In 1977, via her mentor Arthur Laffer, Wood got a job as an assistant economist at Capital Group, where she worked for three years. 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. In 1998, along with Lulu C. Wang, Wood co-founded Tupelo Capital Management, a hedge fund based in New York City. 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 financial crisis of 2007–2008. In 2014, after her idea for actively managed exchange-traded funds based on

disruptive innovation In business theory, disruptive innovation is innovation that creates a new market and value network or enters at the bottom of an existing market and eventually displaces established market-leading firms, products, and alliances. The concept was ...

was deemed too risky by AllianceBernstein, Wood left the company and founded Ark Invest. The company is named after the

Ark of the Covenant The Ark of the Covenant,; Ge'ez: also known as the Ark of the Testimony or the Ark of God, is an alleged artifact believed to be the most sacred relic of the Israelites, which is described as a wooden chest, covered in pure gold, with an e ...

; Wood was reading the One-Year Bible at the time. ARK's first four ETFs were seeded with capital from

Bill Hwang Sung Kook Hwang (Korean: 황성국), also known as Bill Hwang, is a Korean-born American investor and trader. In April 2021, ''The Wall Street Journal'' reported that Hwang lost US$20billion over 10 days in late March, imposing large losses on ...

of Archegos Capital. Wood was named the best stock picker of 2020 by Bloomberg News editor-in-chief emeritus Matthew A. Winkler. As of March 2021, two funds run by Wood were on the list of the 10 largest female-run funds by total net assets. As of 31 December 2021, Cathie Wood's ARK'S ETFs came in fifth place among Morningstar’s list of top 10 wealth-destroying funds compiled by portfolio strategist Amy C. Arnott, and ranked just below investment vehicles from Credit Suisse, ALPS, Kraneshares, and Barclay. As of December, 2022, Wood's flagship fund, Ark Innovation, had lagged behind the S&P 500 for five years, dropping in value by more than 80% from last year's peak.

Awards and honors

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.

Personal life

Wood lives in Wilton, Connecticut. She was divorced from Robert Wood, who died in 2018. She has three children: Caitlin, Caroline, and Robert. Wood is a devout Christian. During the 2020 election, she warned that Joe Biden's plan of taxation and regulation would stifle innovation. Wood also has a large following on Reddit. In 2018, she donated funds to her high school to start the Duddy Innovation Institute, which encourages girls to study

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wood, Cathie 1955 births Living people University of Southern California alumni American money managers American women chief executives Chief investment officers American people of Irish descent Catholics from California Businesspeople from Los Angeles 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American businesswomen 21st-century American businesspeople 21st-century American businesswomen People associated with cryptocurrency People associated with Bitcoin