Somers Farkas

Former model and advertising executive, today Somers consults for non-profit and profit organizations, initiating strategic relationships and development partnerships, advising on new business development and impact investing, and shepherding perception enhancement and transitions. Somers has initiated the formation of an international coffee company and is currently a co-producer of a documentary on the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY).

Her company, SW FARKAS, also creates and produces brand-enhancing events and cross-promotion opportunities that differentiate and generate goodwill.

Somers maintains an active involvement in local and national politics, and, in 2017 was appointed to the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships, a non-partisan program established in 1964 to offer exceptional Americans first-hand experience working at the highest levels of the federal government. She, too, is a committed philanthropist whose devotion has raised millions for organizations including: ASPCA, The Alzheimer’s Association, Lighthouse Guild, and The New York Women’s Foundation, of which she is a former member of the board. 

Somers is strongly committed to supporting first responders. She is an active Trustee of the New York City Police Foundation and has been instrumental in increasing the Board’s diversity. She serves on the Executive Committee and is Chair of its Nominating Committee; Somers is also on the Crime Stoppers Committee, initiating a fund specific for HATE CRIMES. Also, of note, Somers is an Honorary Battalion Chief of the Fire Department of the City of New York.

Hailing from Virginia, on Chesapeake Bay, Somers learned public service from her family, who have a centuries old dedication to the Tidewater area: Her family compelled the passage of a wetlands protection bill; supported the formation of The Barrier Islands Center; ensured capital improvements in the Eastern Shore Community College and Riverside Shore Memorial Hospital; and were instrumental in the building of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, which bears the family’s name, LUCIUS J. KELLAM JR. BRIDGE-TUNNEL, today. 

She attended St. Catherine’s School in Richmond, Virginia, and University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she received her BA in Communications.