about ben
“Aren’t you something!” (as told to Ben Barry) — Oprah Winfrey
Hailed as a “hero to real women everywhere” by The Boston Globe, Ben Barry is dedicated to changing the face and shape of the fashion industry. At age fourteen, Ben helped a friend who was told she was “too big” to be a model by sending her pictures to a magazine editor. The editor called him back, hired his friend, and with that one phone call, Ben launched his modelling agency. Today, Ben serves as CEO of the Ben Barry Agency, a model agency headquartered in Toronto, Canada. His company scouts and sources models of all ages, sizes, backgrounds and abilities for fashion and beauty brands.
Ben has been the subject of feature interviews on Oprah, CNN, MTV, and Fashion Television, and his work has been profiled in The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, and Glamour. He is the author of the bestseller Fashioning Reality: A New Generation of Entrepreneurship. His book was acclaimed by Profit Magazine as “a manifesto for young entrepreneurs and a call to arms to everyone.” Ben has received the CIBC Student Entrepreneur of the Year Award and is the first male winner of the Governor General’s Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case for his leadership in advancing the equality of girls and women in Canada.
As a Special Advisor to the Quebec Government, Ben helped create and launch the first charter in North America to promote healthy and diverse representations of people in the media. He holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Women’s Studies from the University of Toronto, and a Master’s in Innovation and Strategy from Judge Business School at Cambridge University. He is a PhD student at Judge Business School where he is conducting research on consumers’ cross-cultural responses to models in fashion ads. Ben is an Adjunct Professor at the School of Fashion at Ryerson University. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the Canadian Foundation of Women’s Health and as Chair of the Toronto Fashion Incubator.
