Cathie Wood was born November 26, 1955. She is an investor and the founder, CEO and CIO of Ark Invest, an investment management firm.
Wood went to the University of Southern California where she studied Economics under the guidance of Arthur Laffer. From there, she got a job at the Capital Group as an assistant economist.
In 1980, she moved to New York City to take a job at Jennison Associates as chief economist, analyst, portfolio manager and managing director.
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 Great Financial Crisis of 2007–2008.
Wood specializes in breakthrough technologies. This puts her at odds with most of Wall Street. Unlike Silicon Valley venture capital companies, mainstream financial institutions are not concerned about start ups and prefer established entities.
This viewpoint made her ideas too risky for a firm like AllianceBernstein.
In 2014, she left the firm and started Ark Invest.
The company firms all revolve around disruptive technology. This is what Wood is known for. She weathers the downturns in the markets, understanding she is going to be lagging. During the bull run in technology during 2020-2021, she was the darling of Wall Street. Since that time, her funds are down orders of magnitude more than the market overall.
Wood is often a favorite of the financial media, often appearing on the different networks. Her views tend to be counter to the mainstream Wall Street narrative.
Related
- Ark Invest - Website