Ramona Hood

October 2024

Ramona Hood had modest ambitions when, in 1991, at 19 years old, she took a job as a receptionist at a trucking company in Akron, Ohio. A single mother, she was looking for a steady paycheck and predictable hours that would allow her to go to night school.

About two years later, she began thinking she might be capable of more and adjusted her sights accordingly. “I wanted to get to a place where I could manage people and own a profit and loss statement,” she says.

Just five years later, with key mentors in place, and her own “perseverance and drive and ambition,” she saw “possibilities of being able to really move high up in the organization into a c-suite position.” 

She reached that goal when, in 2020, she was named president and chief executive officer of FedEx Custom Critical, a business-to-business unit of FedEx Corporation that she ran until retiring in July 2024. 

“I was fortunate to have what I call today ‘my own personal board of directors,’ both mentors and sponsors who saw the results I was delivering,” Hood says. “It really allowed me to think big and bold because of that faith and support.”

Key among her backers was Virginia Addicott, Hood’s predecessor at FedEx Custom Critical. “She saw potential in me, maybe more than what I saw in myself at the time,” Hood says.

Born and raised in Akron’s North Hill neighborhood, Hood earned a BA from Walsh University and an executive MBA from Case Western Reserve University. Unlike many senior executives, whose climb up the corporate ladder required a willingness to relocate repeatedly, Hood says she has been intentional about keeping her roots in Northeast Ohio: “I’m an only child and I have my mother and other significant family in the area. I always wanted to stay close to them.”

In her retirement, Hood serves on publicly-traded business and private foundation boards and does motivational speaking, with the aim of nurturing inclusive economic development, particularly in her hometown.

She joined the Cleveland Fed’s board of directors in 2024 at the suggestion of the Bank board chair. She says that Reserve Bank board service differs from other board work she’s done because of its focus, not on corporate governance or regulatory compliance, but on early detection of changes in the economy in ways that could affect monetary policy. Board members talk about the things they’re seeing “before the data catch up,” she says.

Hood contributes her expertise on transportation and logistics, and through her work on the board of a restaurant company, an understanding of consumer behavior. Also, she says, “I think being on both public and private companies’ boards gives me a good pulse of what’s going on economically.”

Hood has been struck by the level of follow-up questioning by Cleveland Fed researchers and by the effort made to piece together board members’ economic observations.  “There’s a curiosity to really understand our insights well,” she says.