James Andrews is an entrepreneur, public speaker and founder of Authenticated, a startup factory and brand advisory designed to build better companies, launch new ideas and illuminate influential people through experiences, content, advisory and investments

Andrews previously founded Social People a strategic digital agency that was acquired in 2013.  Social People worked with clients Nike, Beats By Dre, The Grammy Awards, CNN, Equinox and Lexus on global social media initiatives. In 2009 Andrews created #BeatCancer an online movement to raise awareness and micro fund raise for Cancer research. Launched over a dinner idea #BeatCancer garnered the 1^st ever Guinness World Record for social media mentions and most importantly raised $70,000 for cancer charity Stand Up To Cancer in 24hrs via Twitter.

Before launching Social People, Andrews was Vice President, Ketchum PR and built their initial global social media practice area for clients Monster.com, FedEx, GeekSquad, Nokia, Wendy’s and Newell Rubbermaid. In 1999, Andrews built and sold email newsletter SoulPurpose.com to Urban Box Office, a digital entertainment company. At the center of the NYC dot-com boom the company went on to raise $40m and hire 320 employees in 15 months. Soul Purpose and Andrews were both featured in the Wall Street Journal. Andrews formative years were spent as a senior marketing executive at Columbia Records in the mid 90’s, helping develop artists like Nas, The Fugees, Destiny’s Child and Lauryn Hill become household names.

James Andrews has been a keynote speaker globally in Dubai, Tel Aviv, Abu Dhabi, Sao Paulo, and Norway and was named to the Ebony Power100 list. He can be seen as a contributor on CNN, Fox and CNBC discussing digital trends and startups. James Andrews attended UCLA, grew up in Palo Alto, CA and is on the board at Alliance College Ready Public Schools, the largest charter school network in Los Angeles, Muse School in Malibu, CA and Uncharted Play, a NYC renewable energy company based in Harlem and involved in a number of early stage smart city developments in Africa