Benjamin Wolff

Benjamin Wolff has written for Forbes Leadership since 2017. His column asks, “What can corporate America learn from the arts?” and profiles leaders who have the insight to find value where those worlds come together.

Ben graduated with Bachelor of Arts in history from Columbia University and was part of the launch of the Columbia-Juilliard program. He received his Master of Music from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music.

In 1997 he co-founded the Foothills Chamber Music Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. For seven years he led the festival as cellist and co-Artistic Director as it presented a celebrated series of summer performances, lectures and symposia at the Reynolda House Museum of American Art, the Southeast Center for Contemporary Art, and the Delta Fine Arts Center.

Ben is also the creator of Galileo’s Muse, a program that dramatizes a unique intersection of art and science. It tells the story of how one of history’s most famous scientists turned to music to solve the mystery of how objects fall. Galileo’s Muse has been featured at institutions such as Harvard University and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

For eighteen years he was Adjunct Professor of Music at Hofstra University and a member of the Hofstra String Quartet. As a cellist, he has performed with ensembles such as Concert Royal, Early Music New York, Sinfonia New York, the Paul Taylor Dance Company, and the American Classical Orchestra.

Ben is past president of the National Speakers Association New York City and was co-chair of the 2018 NSA National Winter Conference. He has delivered innovative programs on creativity, teamwork, and emotional intelligence for companies and organizations such as Cisco, Ingram Micro, the Association for Manufacturing Excellence, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Rockefeller University.

He lives in New York City.