About James Ferrari

James Ferrari has spent the past decade operating at the intersection of business, art, science, technology, media, politics, journalism and public health.

James Ferrari is a true multi-hyphenate. As an entrepreneur, filmmaker, artist, activist, and philanthropist, he has dozens of projects on the table at any given time. As an experienced entrepreneur, he involves himself in projects rooted in creating change. His investing focus is on creating change in the bigger systems affecting the environment, social justice, public health and news media. Some of his film projects focus on telling meaningful, socially relevant stories, while others are designed to entertain.

James is an early investor and advisor in socially and environmentally conscious businesses. In 2017, he got involved in Aspiration, a financial tool that helps people and companies fight climate change, spend sustainably, and measure one’s carbon footprint. 

He is also an investor in Simpliphi Power, a company that manufactures clean and affordable energy storage systems by utilizing non-toxic lithium ferro phosphate. 

Companies that are at the vanguard of earth health and food science, agriculture, and public health also are important to James. He is an investor in one.bio, a company making an easy, sustainable way to consume fiber, aiming to reduce chronic illnesses caused by lack of fiber. Their patented technology converts natural fibers to simple, active fibers and probiotics that are soluble and palatable.

He is an investor in Vestaron, a biological insecticide technology that is an effective alternative to synthetic types and is often a more sustainable option for crops, for the environment and for people ingesting them. This technology is derived through proprietary peptide expression and is designed to be soft on beneficials and honeybees, as well as safe for fish and mammals.

He also invested in Bonumose (a company the Hershey corporation recently invested in) innovating new and rare healthy natural sugars. 

Since 2014, James has fostered an interest in the fusion of technology, social science and economies. He regularly attends global conferences that share ideas from fields relevant to understanding and designing collective intelligence in its many forms, such as the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, the MIT Media Lab, where James is a regular participant, the MIT Bitcoin Currency Lab, and the Data-Pop Alliance project, a joint initiative to leverage the new ecosystem of big data in order to improve ownership and safety of one’s data. The goal is to empower people in a way that avoids the pitfalls of a new digital divide, de-humanization, de-democratization and privacy.

James is equally passionate about the arts. Among his many artistic pursuits, he performs as an actor, both on screen and on stage. In 2018, in his stage debut, James had the honor take part in from OnTheRoad Repertory Company ‘s A Night of Chekhov. Directed by the legendary Alice Spivak, music coordinator Eric Rausch (featuring the Firebird by Igor Stravinsky), on January 29th at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, where he performed scenes from The Bear and The Cherry Orchard with the terrific Nicole Kafka in a sold out performance.

In 2022, James had the privilege to perform in Love All Alices, which tells the story of legendary New York City acting teacher Alice Spivak, who taught for more than 60 years and died in 2020 at the age of 85. Director Lavinia Jones Wright interviewed Alice Spivak over the course of three years, and wrote Love All Alices entirely from her words. The play premiered in a staged reading event this summer at the Connelly Theater, beginning on what would have been Alice’s 87th birthday: August 11th, 2022, by 40 actors who knew her.

James has also been involved in films behind the camera. In 2021, he was an executive producer on the Sony Pictures film "A Mouthful of Air" starring Amanda Seyfried, Paul Giamatti, Amy Irving, Finn Wittrock and Britt Robertson, released in 2021 by Sony pictures worldwide, a psychological drama that follows a successful children’s book author and mother to be as she confronts a dark secret that has haunted her life. In 2023, James served as associate producer on the documentary film “Hummingbirds”, which won the Generation Award at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival. The film follows two filmmakers as they examine issue of immigration along the Texas-Mexican border through the lens of their own friendship. Currently in production is a documentary on the life of photographer, naturalist, and artist Peter Beard. James is working as a producer with Trudie Styler and Celine Rattray of Maven Pictures to produce a film about Rebecca Gromperts. Writer Olivia Hetreed wrote the screenplay and Maggie Betts is to direct. The film will tell the true story of Gomperts, the Dutch doctor who recruited a band of women to sail around the world and provide abortions at sea for women who have no legal alternative through the Women On Waves initiative. Film slated for production in 2023.

LoveLite is the inaugural collaboration of Citizen Media and Tribal Truth. It is a theatrical lighting art installation on an open field in Long Island, NY that features a 60’ steel tower and celebrates the ideology of a global village. In Lovelite, the artists James Ferrari and Richmond Burton used colored rope lights and controlled theatrical lighting to realize vibrant intersecting lines that surround and consume the artists and viewer. The individual is invited to assume a macrocosmic perspective as they can view the component parts working together in a delicate, interrelated balance between the planet and our influence over it — as portrayed by ever-moving lines of colored lights in concert with original music James Ferrari recorded sung by orphans and vulnerable children when traveling in the Ugandan Rainforest.

James is involved in multiple philanthropic projects . He is on the National Leadership council of the News literacy Project which has been excellent at combating Misinformation and disinformation in our News and media systems. He is a member of The Common Good , a non-partisan membership organization dedicated to the spread of healthy political debate and discourse.

James has been on the National leadership council of the News Literacy project since 2017. In 2019 James was a participant in Good Pitch Local Philadelphia. Good Pitch Local is a space for community, collaboration and creative change, created to raise up stories that matter in the fight for a more open, just and vibrant Philly––and beyond–– by the artists and organizers on the front lines of social change. In 2019 James was also a judge for the Letters to Strangers Mental Health Scholarship competition. The nonprofit seeks to destigmatize mental illness and increase access to affordable, quality treatment for youth. This scholarship awards money primarily to minority youth aged 13-24 that are in an underrepresented demographic in the mental health field in order to study and pursue a career in the profession.

In the spring of 2020 James was invited as a delegate to the For Freedoms Congress in Los Angeles, co-hosted by Sankofa.org. In a series of “town halls” artists led these delegates from all 50 states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico in building a collective artists’ platform for public action to supercharge civic engagement in their communities leading up to the 2020 Presidential Election. Delegates were made up of artistic collaborators, institutional and organizational partners, and funders. James also participated in the one-of-a-kind speaking event TEDxSingSing in 2020. TEDxSingSing was primarily organized by a team of six currently incarcerated men inside Sing Sing Correctional Facility. More than half of the featured speakers were chosen from men living at Sing Sing. This event was created by men directly impacted by the criminal justice system with the intent to highlight the voices, stories, and insight of those who are too often overlooked. The theme of this event was “Re-Defining What Matters,” leading to innovative talks from people of all different backgrounds. This included the miraculous talks of people whose lives were transformed because they were able to access education while incarcerated.

In November 2022, James attended the Boston Global Forum’s 10th Anniversary Conference, where distinguished leaders and thinkers honored the UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology Amandeep Gill with the World Leader in AIWS Award, and engaged in a discussion of how BGF could help foster an Age of Global Enlightenment. At the event, James championed his belief that a regulatory reset must take place among the technology company giants and their usage of big data.

In March and April 2023, he collaborated with the Boston Global Forum at a conference on April 26th at the Harvard Faculty Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he introduced the Global Enlightenment Mountain Program, a revolutionary new initiative aimed at creating a virtual Silicon Valley model for the AI and digital era, and spoke on behalf of the BGF at the United Nations, where he addressed the rise of disinformation and misinformation and the threats AI technology poses to that end at this critical juncture in technology’s rapid evolution.

James Ferrari founded Benjamin James in 1993, one of the leading property and real estate brokerage and marketing firms in New York City. By 2001 Benjamin James had 4 offices and a staff of 200 with 13 exclusive doorman buildings. In 2001, Benjamin James Marketing brought 21 Chelsea to market which coincided with the attacks of 9/11.

As a social entrepreneur, James has advised multinational corporations relating to local political, economic and social issues in developing nations. He is interested in projects related to reproductive health, climate change, criminal justice reform, news and media literacy, and democracy. In 2002, James was involved in the facilitation of the construction of homes in flood- devastated Mozambique. James used proceeds from the 21 Chelsea development in NYC to build housing for disaster relief victims in Mozambique . The project was derived from James' alliance with the Synergos Institute working closely with the FDC (Foundation for Community Development) and its chairperson Gra§a Machel, former first lady of Mozambique and the wife of South African President Nelson Mandela. In 2002, James also worked with UNICEF and delegates from 22 different countries in Windhoek, Namibia on the global HIV pandemic affecting orphans and vulnerable children.

In 2005, James was on Mayor Bloomberg and Ambassador Soderberg’s Sister City committee, which promoted cross collaboration between New York City’s and Johannesburg’s tourism industries and economic markets. Locally and nationally, James continues to be actively involved in political elections by supporting democratic candidates and raising awareness among the philanthropic society. In 2005, James founded the online art collective and community Tribal Truth, which incubates partnerships between artists and humanitarian organizations.In 2006, Citizen Media was born, emerging from the creation of his own work and from his interest in investment. Citizen Media develops new media for film, television, and short form participatory digital entertainment, claiming a variety of projects spanning over 2 decades of his work. The company kickstarted after 911 2001 where James’s Trauma or childhood origin had a re awakening. The terrorist attacks of 911 changed all directions and interests for james. “After the Fall” disseminates different types of trauma and their origins, Covid 19 trauma vs Hurricane Sandy etc.

James Ferrari attended Hunter College, majoring in Political Science, with continuing education in Globalization and its Effect on the 20th Century. He is a supporter of the Foreign Policy Association, the Ubuntu Education Fund, the covenant house, the Marshall project, the common good us, the Public Policy Institute, New York Art Society and Society for the Preservation of Public Space, the Threshold Foundation, The Arena, Synergos, The Creative Resistance, The Accompanied Library, Frameworks Institute, The New York Philharmonic, and the Museum of Modern Art. He is also a visual artist, painter, actor and writer.