John Hood -  Former Guest Speaker at the Leadership Institute

John Hood is president of the John William Pope Foundation, a Raleigh-based grantmaker that supports public policy organizations, educational institutions, arts and cultural programs, and humanitarian relief in North Carolina and beyond.
Hood is also chairman of the board and co-founder of the John Locke Foundation and served as its president from 1995 to 2014.

Since 1986, Hood has written a syndicated column on politics and public policy for North Carolina newspapers. He also writes a regular column, “Free & Clear,” for Business North Carolina magazine and serves as a weekly panelist on “NC SPIN,” a political talk show broadcast on 26 television and radio stations across the state.

Hood is the author of seven books. The most recently Catalyst: Jim Martin and the Rise of North Carolina Republicans. Hood’s other books include Our Best Foot Forward: An Investment Plan for North Carolina’s Economic Recovery, Selling the Dream: Why Advertising is Good Business, Investor Politics, The Heroic Enterprise: Business and the Common Good, and two volumes of family history.

Hood writes and comments frequently for national media outlets, particularly National Review and its blog “The Corner.” His articles have appeared in both magazines — such as Readers’ Digest, The New Republic, Military History, and Reason — and in newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and The Chicago Tribune.

Hood received his degree in journalism in 1988 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he founded a magazine called The Carolina Critic was eventually published on six university campuses. Hood currently serves on the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Visitors and as chairman of the Carolina Liberty Foundation, which provides financial support to conservative and libertarian student groups at Chapel Hill.

He is a Mecklenburg County native and currently resides in Wake County with his wife, two sons, and a stepdaughter.

John Hood