From 1950, until his death, Hodakov served as chairman of Agudas Chasidei Chabad, the umbrella organization of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.
Chaim Mordechai Aizik was born in the Russian town of Beshenkowitz on January 12, 1902 to Sholom Yisroel and Chaya Treina Hodakov.
His close ties (through Mordehai Dubin) with the dictatorial regime of Karlis Ulmanis, and his strict orthodoxy, accompanied by the radical antisocialism and mass lock-outs of left-orientated teachers caused him to be unpopular with the secular circles of Latvian Jewry.
[1] When the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, moved to Riga (from Russia) in 1928, Hodakov joined his staff.
In 1940, when the Schneersohn escaped from Nazi-occupied Poland, he asked Hodakov and his wife to accompany him to the United States as part of his official entourage.