Aarti Tandon

Aarti Tandon is the CEO of Tomorrow.City USA, an annual convening in West Palm Beach of CEOs, global government officials, philanthropists, and top leaders in transportation, infrastructure, sports, security, frontier tech, finance, real estate, and modern urban planning harnessing AI, big data, quantum, blockchain, eVTOLs, automation, robotics, and the $1.6 trillion global smart city marketplace to build modern, prosperous, future-ready, and globally competitive cities.

A seasoned lawyer, filmmaker, and event producer, Aarti has been working at the intersection of entertainment + technology + justice for two decades. She is most well-known for having secured a rare Presidential Commutation at just 33 years old.

Aarti began her career as a tech lawyer and then spent a decade in entertainment representing Grammy-nominated artists, filmmakers, magazine publishers, and more. She worked with India’s leading events company, Wizcraft, and oversaw the tours of the world’s most famous Bollywood stars. She organized high-level delegations for the U.S. State Department in advance of the 2014 World Cup, consulted for Derek Jeter’s The Players’ Tribune, and worked on special projects with will.i.am to World Central Kitchen to feed the most vulnerable during the pandemic.

Aarti served as Interim Executive Director of the Blue Sphere Foundation (an ocean conservation NGO) and as a content producer for the Gates Foundation's Goalkeepers event featuring President Macron and other heads of state. She was selected to participate in the 2019 Global Entrepreneurship Summit, served as a Senior Advisor to the Bloomberg 2020 campaign and the World Economic Forum’s Urban Transformation Summit. She is on the board of the Carolina Farm Trust and Ahimsa’s Conscious Cafeterias Project, and a Global Ambassador of the Global Impact Initiative.

An early steward of criminal justice reform, Aarti successfully petitioned President George W. Bush to grant the early release of Grammy-nominated musician and Fugees producer, John Forté, who was serving a 14-year federal prison sentence for a first-time non-violent drug offense (it was one of only 11 Commutations granted during President Bush’s eight years in office). Her continued efforts to reduce mass incarceration include having worked with the wrongfully convicted at the Deskovic Foundation and formerly incarcerated women at Project Liberation.

As a feature documentary filmmaker, her credits include: Executive Producer, “OG* (*Right Side of History, Wrong Side of the Law), a film on federal cannabis reform produced by Woody Harrelson and Oren Moverman; Producer, “Catching the Sun”, a film on renewable energy featuring Van Jones and executive produced by Leonardo DiCaprio (Netflix, 2016), and; Co-Executive Producer, “The Uncondemned”, a film on the historic Akayesu case and first ever conviction of rape as a crime of war supported by Global Citizen with music by Aloe Blacc.

Aarti is a graduate of Emory University (B.A., International Studies; Certificat, Sorbonne Université) and the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law (J.D.) where she served as Editor-in Chief of the Moot Court Honor Society and received the Jacob Burns Medal of Honor. Aarti is a member of the third class of the Aspen Institute Civil Society Fellowship and the Aspen Global Leaders Network. Aarti lives in New York City with her husband, Joseph.