Cathie Wood was born in California to Irish immigrants and estimates she moved with her family more than 10 times in her first 13 years. Today, the influential investor and founder and CEO of ARK Invest is at home in St. Pete, where she moved her global, innovation-forward investment management firm in 2021 from New York City.
Wood’s vision for St. Pete and greater Tampa Bay is for the area to become a major innovation and technology hub, backed by the ARK Ellison Horus plan—a $6.8 billion proposal to develop St. Pete’s Gas Plant District as a master-planned innovation district. Wood shares how she’s enjoying life in the Burg and why she believes the moment for the city’s innovation economy to boom is now.
The famous economist, Arthur Laffer, was my college professor when I was at the University of Southern California. I consider him my biggest mentor. He gave me my first big break as an assistant economist in Los Angeles when I was still in college. I asked him to be an advisor to my firm when I founded it.
When we decided to move ARK’s New York City headquarters in 2021, we were looking at states with zero state income tax and places like Nashville, Austin and the Research Triangle. It came down to Tampa and St. Pete. We thought it was Tampa the day we left, but then we got to St. Pete and there was just something. St. Pete needed us more, and I think that was appealing to our young employees, too. It has a vibe, it feels like Austin ten years ago. We’d love to do a twist on South by Southwest here that would be on both sides of the bridge—something a little more World’s Fair to attract people to this place that’s showcasing new technologies and the ways they’re going to transform our lives.
We can bring innovation to life here and maybe become the “new” Bay area. This place has leisure, hospitality, entertainment, sports, music and art. But to strengthen the tax base, we have to bring businesses from outside and really make it much more diversified.
I am getting more sleep here than I did in New York. Here, I get seven to eight hours because I don’t commute. I walk to work. And when we move our offices to the EDGE District soon, I’ll be walking even more from where I live in downtown St. Pete.
During a work day, I love every moment. I love what I do so I don’t consider it work. I delegate management of the company, but I love every research and investing moment.
A perfect Saturday for me starts with waking up when I want. I can really sleep 12 hours if we’ve had an exhausting week, it’s amazing. I’ll get up between 9 and 10:30 a.m., then have coffee with my partner, Joe, my first love from the 1970s. We ended up having different lives, but we’re together now. I curl up in a chair and we’ll just share news. Then I like to take walks around St. Pete. I’ll go to Snell Isle, and sometimes I end up walking 10 miles. We usually go out for an early dinner—I only eat one meal a day.
My personal trainer has transformed my life in an interesting way. I didn’t eat red meat for 40 years, except for during a brief period when I was pregnant and craving iron. Now I eat red meat again. He didn’t push it on me at all. He just explained what’s going on and how to build muscle. I have an objective and he’s helped me so much. I want to build muscles and just stay strong.
My biggest extravagance now is “not cooking.” I’m so happy we have Elliott Aster at the Vinoy. We like Juno & The Peacock on Beach Drive, too, the crab cake is unbelievable. Our place isn’t far, so we often walk. Joe loves Italian so we’ll go to Bonu’ Taverna Italiana, too. We had our marvelous Christmas and offsite parties at Urban Stillhouse, and they couldn’t have been more joyful: food, ambience and service
The most profound thing that’s ever happened to me is my children—it’s having them. I have three kids, and we’re all very close. They live in New York City. I’m trying to get them down here, but it’s not happening.
My parents immigrated to the US from Ireland. My mom came at age 18, she was a nanny. My father came when he was 22 and planned to work for his half-brother in a trucking company in New Jersey, but was drafted immediately into the Air Force.
My dad was a design engineer for radar systems during what he would call the dawn of the electronic age. He was a big inspiration for me. I was born in LA and we lived in Alabama, England, Ireland and New York, among other places. My mother had four children in five years and I asked her later how it felt to move so often. She loved it. She was so full of joy.
I believe each one of us is put on Earth, for a reason. But we also have free will. I believe that the Holy Spirit guides us when we’re kind of slipping off the path and kind of feel like, ‘Oh, this doesn’t feel right.” When you’re back on the path, it’s like ‘Oh yes, yes, yes!’ So that’s sort of how I’ve lived my life.
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