Lucy Hood

Education

Born in Manhattan in 1958, Hood gained a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Theatre from Yale University, and held an Master of Business Administration from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business.

Career

Hood guided the Institute’s strategy and its consortium of corporate members, which include American Telephone & Telegraph Company, Verizon, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, Qualcomm, Motorola Mobility, Alcatel-Lucent, Disney, Fox and Ogilvy & Mather. Hood began her career at News Corporation in the mid-1990s, rising through the group"s HarperCollins publishing arm, latterly as senior VP, entertainment publishing. Before taking the newly created post of senior VP and general manager of television Guide in June 1999.

Hood then became a key executive in launching technology businesses at News Corporation including Fox Pay Television, Fox.com, Forex Cable and News Corporation Content Group.

Hood then became president of Fox Mobile Entertainment, which she founded in 2005. Hood also received the only Emmy nomination for mobile content with the mobile video series 24: Conspiracy, and led the team that created the program format of video “mobisodes,” short-form 3G mobile content.

And the first ad-sponsored mobile video. Hood was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Jamba! in September, 2006 after spearheading News Corporation’s efforts to acquire a controlling interest from VeriSign.

Hood resigned from both Jamba and News Corporation on October 10, 2007 "wishing to pursue new entrepreneurial ventures."

In 2009, Hood was appointed Executive Director for the Institute for Communication Technology Management (Cell Transmission Model) at the University of Southern California.

She focused Cell Transmission Model’s activities on “the intersection of technology and content”, launching a “How Much Media?” study in 2011 to analyze where consumer media innovation and consumption is headed between 2011 and 2015. Hood was nominated as “Visionary of the Year” for the Digital Entertainment & Media Excellence Awards. She gave presentations at major industry events such as Certificate in Superior Studies, Mobile World Congress, CTIA, the Milken Global Conference and Aspen Institute.

Hood died of cancer in Los Angeles on April 2, 2014, at the age of 56.

Achievements

• During this time Hood achieved many industry firsts, including leading the North American groundbreaking mobile services for American Idol, which introduced text messaging to the mass population in the United States. She was a member of the Group Special Mobile, CTIA and Natpe boards, as well as a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Membership

Hood was also a member of the faculty at University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business.