Costos was a corporate leader and executive in the international retail and international entertainment industries, most notably at HBO and Tod's. His responsibilities included global positioning, external relations, marketing and communications. He is an active supporter of humanitarian organizations, including the Human Rights Campaign and the Santa Monica Museum of Art, and an advocate for cultural institutions and cultural diplomacy. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Humane Society of the United States, the country's largest animal protection organization. President Obama nominated Costos for the position of U.S. Ambassador to Spain and Principality of Andorra on June 14, 2013. The U.S. Senate voted to confirm the nomination on August 1, 2013, and Costos was sworn in on August 22, 2013. He presented his credentials to the Spanish government in Madrid on September 24, 2013. His business career has made him expert on the issue of the enforcement of laws against digital piracy, a particular concern of U.S. businesses with respect to Spain. His initial focus, he said, was on issues of international security and thanking Spain for allowing the U.S. to deploy part of its anti-missile shield defense and for hosting U.S. military bases. In September 2013, Costos visited the bases at Rota and Morón to mark the 60th anniversary of the agreement under which they were established. In February 2017, Ambassador Costos joined the Board of Directors of PJT Partners, an advisory-focused investment bank. Paul J. Taubman is the Chairman and CEO of PJT Partners. Mr. Taubman founded PJT Partners in early 2013 and, in October 2014, announced the intention to merge into the spun-off Blackstone advisory businesses. In April 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Spain’s Grupo Secuoya, owner of the Madrid studios used by Netflix for its first European Production Hub, named Ambassador Costos, former HBO Executive, as president of Secuoya Studios, its TV fiction-film content production arm. In October 2013 the Spanish government summoned him to address allegations that the National Security Agency had recently collected data on 60 million telephone calls in Spain. While visiting California in 2014, President Obama and his wife Michelle stayed at the Costos-Smith home. In June 2015, he joined other gay U.S. ambassadors in a statement supporting international trade agreements, linking open markets to the development of open societies that provide civil rights protections.
Personal life
Costos lives in Los Angeles, California, with his partner Michael S. Smith, the official interior designer for the Obama White House. He is a vegetarian, but imposed no dietary restrictions on embassy functions. On the subject of LGBT rights, Costos has said "I am not an activist. I broadly support human rights for straight, gay, women’s issues. And I just happen to be gay.... This doesn't define me as a person, but it is part of who I am. It's like being a vegetarian: it's one more facet of James Costos." He said he and Smith had been welcomed in Spain "with great accommodation" and that because Spain already provides LGBT civil rights, the role he and Smith played was a symbolic for those who still suffered from a lack of enforcement in support of their rights: "What we can do through our messaging is give a sense of hope." After leaving the White House in January 2017, the Obamas departed Washington for Palm Springs, where they were guests in the Costos-Smith home for several days before traveling to the British Virgin Islands to stay at the home of Sir Richard Branson.
