Executive Bios

Peter Acworth

Founder/CEO

Peter grew up in Derbyshire, England, the son of a sculptor and former Jesuit priest. From a young age, Peter showed strong entrepreneurial instincts selling vegetables from the family garden and brewing homemade beer to sell to his school friends. He studied Mathematics at Cambridge University and Management at Ecole HEC, Paris. After completing his Master's degree, he worked for Baring Brothers in London for 2 years before leaving in 1997 to start a PhD in finance at Columbia Business School in New York City. At the end of his first year, he was inspired by a newspaper article about a fireman who had made half a million pounds selling adult content on the Internet. Seeing an opportunity to combine his lifelong interest in bondage with his nose for business, Peter launched his first website, Hogtied.com, which he ran from the confines of his dorm room for the subsequent year. In 1998, Peter decided to leave the PhD program and move to San Francisco to found Cybernet Entertainment, LLC, which over the next decade grew into the thriving conglomerate of kinky BDSM and fetish websites that are now known as 'Kink.com' While Peter stepped down as Hogtied.com's director in the Fall of 2003, he remained deeply involved in the day to day operations of the company, the development of new sites, and the evolution of a supportive and sustainable kinky community. Acworth not only helped San Francisco's Society of Janus establish their BDSM community resource center, the Citadel, but he also offered up Kink.com's former production studio, the 'Porn Palace', as a location for parties and fundraisers that benefit local Fetish and BDSM organizations. In late 2006 Acworth's Armory Studios purchased the San Francisco Armory and began to develop the historic landmark as a corporate office and production studio for Kink.com. Peter continues to be involved in the local community as an advocate for the rights of sexual minorities, a responsible neighbor and business owner and as an emblem of a kinky revolution.