ARK Invest founder, CEO, and CIO Cathie Wood has become one of St. Pete’s most prominent champions since relocating her firm here in 2021 — and her remarks at the St. Pete EDC’s 9th Annual Meeting are worth watching in full.
Wood’s vision for St. Pete goes well beyond ARK’s own footprint. She’s focused on what the city and region can become together — and one idea she floated at the annual meeting deserves its own spotlight: a flagship innovation showcase she’s calling “South by Southeast.”
The concept isn’t a festival for its own sake. It’s a platform to demonstrate the five converging technology platforms ARK tracks — robotics, energy storage, artificial intelligence, public blockchain, and multiomics — in a city young and flexible enough to actually deploy them. “What I love about St. Pete is we actually are greenfield in a way to enable these technologies,” she said. “We’re so young and so vibrant that we can introduce these technologies in a way that [others] cannot.”
That greenfield advantage, in Wood’s view, is St. Pete’s edge over more established markets. While Miami contends with congestion and soaring real estate, St. Pete has room to build thoughtfully — and a growing regional ecosystem, from spARK Labs to Moffitt’s AI researchers to Palantir’s new local presence, that’s already starting to reinforce itself.
For the full story on what Cathie Wood and other speakers shared at “St. Pete: On the Map,” read our annual meeting recap.
Thinking about making St. Pete your company’s next headquarters? Connect with the St. Pete EDC.
