James Hurman is a New Zealand-based entrepreneur, investor and advertising effectiveness expert.

He’s the founding partner of Previously Unavailable, a creative company that partners with, creates and invests into high-growth startup companies.

James is a co-founder of several high-profile New Zealand startups including Tracksuit (brand health tracking SAAS) and AF Drinks (non-alcoholic RTD cocktails), both of whom are market leaders in New Zealand and growing in the US and other global markets.

In partnership with New Zealand’s premier venture capital firm Icehouse Ventures, James and his partners created Brand Fund 1, a VC fund that invests in and advises brand-led start-up companies.

James is one of the world’s better-known experts on marketing and advertising effectiveness. He grew up in the advertising industry as a strategic planner and during his career won over 50 advertising effectiveness awards and was named the world’s number one strategic planning director.

He’s the author of several major data-driven marketing effectiveness studies including The Effectiveness Code (2020) with Cannes Lions and WARC, and The B2B Effectiveness Code (2021) with the LinkedIn B2B Institute and WARC. He’s the author of two books on the subject – The Case for Creativity (2015) and Future Demand (2022) – which bring together evidence-based research to help organisations better plan brand, marketing and advertising strategy.

He consults in this capacity to large organisations across the world, and is a senior advisor at LIONS Advisory - the consulting offering of Cannes Lions - through which he leads creative transformation programmes for major global brands.

James is the programme director of the Master of Advertising Effectiveness, a global online professional development programme for marketing and advertising people whose alumni includes executives from Google, Amazon, Airbnb, Disney, McDonalds, New York Times, Salesforce and all of the major advertising agency networks.