James obtained his undergraduate degree in Computer Science in UNSW Australia. He was also trained in Arts Management; he created a theatre critics publication, produced theatre productions and eventually started a bookshop and a restaurant around the turn of the millennium. The bookshop Mackie Study was one of the early attempts in the local scene to operate a bookshop with a multiple dimension of cultural and music events. A few years later, James joined Oxfam Hong Kong in the Development Education team, fostering global citizenship education in schools and in the parent-child sector.
In 2018, James founded Rolling Books to promote reading experience in this challenging digital age. He graduated with a Master Degree in Anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2020. Joining the Programme in 2019, he partnered with Audio Description Association (Hong Kong) and was awarded Champion for the project “Multi-sensory Reading Experience through Image, Sound and Touch”. Many current projects of Rolling Books are in collaboration with the friends he made in that cohort. He has also served as a mentor for the 2021 and 2023 cohort.
