Jim Peters is the Founder and President of RHI, a non-profit celebrating 40 years since its first conference in Boston. Before RHI, he had 15 years of experience in hospitality and nightlife, planning and opening restaurants and music venues. Peters traveled to six continents to advocate for responsible beverage service and innovative approaches to district management. He has served on federal advisory panels, consulted on essential research on effectiveness of policy and training, and spoken at worldwide conferences. His writing has appeared in significant trade and policy publications. As president, he has overseen program development for RHI events and has been directly involved or served as an advisor for more than 80 city assessments.

Before founding RHI, Peters served in many hospitality roles (bartender, server, chef, manager, owner, consultant) and sectors (hotel, restaurant, bar, music/disco). His degree is in hospitality management, and he was a social issues editor for Restaurant Business in the 1980s with featured articles on alcohol service and liability, smoking, accessibility, women and minorities in food service, and employee assistance programs. Since founding RHI, he has joined police ride-alongs and personal outings in active nightlife districts in Santiago, Ibiza, Cape Town, Cancun, London, Dublin, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Prague, Paris, Madrid, five cities in New Zealand, five Canadian cities and dozens of cities in the United States.  He has also spoken at conferences for the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, the International Nightlife Association (twice) in Ibiza, Spain and in Colombia, on nighttime safety, and Harm Reduction International (Ibiza, Cape Town), Club Health and highway safety and regulatory conferences.

In his role with RHI, he assisted in development of responsible beverage service (RBS) training standards and legislation, including as a consultant with federally funded research evaluating RBS training and policies. He contributed the responsible business practices defense used in model legislation on alcohol (dram shop) liability. This facilitated the evolution to a public safety and policing strategy in Chicago, becoming a template for Seattle, Edmonton, DC, Charleston, Milwaukee, Cancun, and other cities. These experiences ore incorporated in RHI's publication of the Public Safety and Policing Nightlife Districts guide in cooperation with the Major Cities Chiefs Association, which was distributed to all its members. This guide was translated into Spanish for the Cancun project and distributed throughout Mexico and Central American cities.

‍