Wood started Room to Read in 2000 after quitting his executive position as Microsoft's director of business development for the greater China region.
[2] In late 2021, he announced in the Financial Times[3] his decision to start a new non-profit, U-Go, with the aim of helping tens of thousands of young women in low income countries to pursue higher education through targeted scholarships, life skills training and job placement.
[4] U-Go was launched via a live Bloomberg interview[5] on February 7, 2021, and is now working in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Vietnam[6] with plans to add on Nepal and the Philippines.
serves on the boards of the Singapore-based private equity firm Asia Partners[7] and Hong Kong–based plant-based protein innovator Green Monday Holdings.
[20][21] Soon thereafter, he left his job at Microsoft entirely to devote himself full-time to Books for Nepal, a side project that would eventually form the foundation for Room to Read.
[1] Wood launched U-Go after meeting many Room to Read Girl Scholars whose parents were grateful that their daughters would finish secondary school, but frustrated that they would not be able to continue on to university.
[5] For many years he and a small group of friends had personally bankrolled a few dozen scholarships, but he felt this was "too little and too random" and that a more strategic and scalable model was needed to "hand out sledgehammers to shatter this remaining glass ceiling".
The organization works in 8 countries where women have traditionally lacked access to university—Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines and Vietnam.
The book, written in rhyme and illustrated by Nepali artist Abin Shrestha, tells the story of Room to Read in a manner accessible to school children.