Ms. Hooker Odom is currently President of the Milbank Memorial Fund, a New York-based foundation that conducts nonpartisan analysis, study, and research on significant issues in health policy. Prior to joining the Fund in 2007, she was appointed the Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services by Governor Mike Easley in January 2001. Ms. Hooker Odom, a former Massachusetts lawmaker and healthcare lobbyist, has spent her professional life working in health and human services. Before her appointment, she served as Vice President of Government Relations for Quintiles Transnational Corporation in Research Triangle Park and as the Group Vice President for Carolinas HealthCare System (CHS). She is also an Adjunct Professor at the UNC School of Public Health. From1995 to 1996, Hooker Odom worked as a Project Officer for the Milbank Memorial Fund.

Prior to moving to North Carolina in 1995, Hooker Odom served as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives for nearly eleven years. As House Chairman of the Joint Committee on Health Care, she was the primary legislative author of both the 1991 Massachusetts comprehensive health reform legislation and the Children's Medical Security Plan, which targeted young children not covered by medical insurance. Hooker Odom co-chaired the North Carolina Health Care Reform Commission and is a member of the North Carolina Institute of Medicine.

She received a bachelor's degree in sociology and political science from Springfield College and a master's degree in regional planning from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.