Born Ronald William Artest Jr. on Nov. 13, 1979, in Queensbridge, New York, Artest changed his name to Metta World Peace in September 2011 in an effort to encourage dialogue over physical violence and promote good will toward all.  He is the father of four children.  

Founder of Artest Management Group and Co CEO of XvsXSports , Metta looks to build his management company piece by piece . 

World Peace played professional basketball for 19 years.  In his career he played for 6 NBA teams.  He won the NBA World Championship with the LA Lakers in June 2010 and received the J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award – the NBA’s highest citizenship and community service honor – in April 2011. He was selected to the 2005-06 NBA’s All-Defensive Team, was voted by the media as 2003-04 NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year and was the only man with 271 steals in his first two seasons in the NBA, breaking Michael Jordan’s record. His autobiography, “No Malice: My Life in Basketball” was released in May 2018 with Triumph Publishing and a documentary on his life in basketball, “Ron Artest: The Quiet Storm” was released on Showtime in May 2019. World Peace is currently pursuing many entrepreneurial projects including the XvsXsports project which launched to the general public in October 2020.

World Peace is also known as a prominent mental health advocate, pop culture personality and media favorite.  He raffled off his 2010 NBA World Championship Ring with the proceeds going to his nonprofit, Xcel University (now known as Artest University). The online ring raffle raised more than $650,000.  Funds were donated to nonprofits that provide mental health therapists and mental health services to their communities and to provide scholarships to underprivileged youth in the New York City area.  

World Peace regularly speaks with audiences across the globe about mental health, entrepreneurship, teamwork and overcoming adversity. Recent audiences have included Royal families, dignitaries in the Dubai, Bahrain, AT&T, Coleman, FalconX at Meta, NFT Outeredge, Web3 and the LA Sports Innovation Summit at the SoFi Stadium.