James Hanbury

James Hanbury has spent the majority of his career running a variety of media businesses. Most recently he was Chairman of Drivetribe, a social media platform set up by Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond after they left TopGear.
Previously, James co founded Incisive Media in 1994, with 8 staff and £275k of funding, growing the company from being the launch publisher of one specialist magazine, to a global media business employing c2500 staff on 3 continents.
Having served as an officer in the British Army, James worked in advertising sales and marketing services before setting up Incisive Media. An entrepreneur at heart, James has experienced every aspect of growing a business, through good times and bad, launching product, nurturing talent and understanding where effort and reward are best aligned.
Under his leadership, Incisive Media transformed itself from a legacy print publisher to also being a significant force in digital and face to face communication.
In 2014 James left Incisive Media to be Chairman of Imagine Publishing which he sold in 2016 to Future plc, a specialist consumer information publisher, and joined their Board as Deputy Chairman. James helped grow Future from a publisher of printed magazines to a highly successful e-commerce engine – boosting their share price 6x in the space of 24 months. He also advises several other companies across a broad spectrum of industry sectors and raises money for a number of armed services charities.
James is passionate about recruiting talent at grass roots level, overseeing a working environment where talented and motivated staff can be trained and given the freedom to successfully further their careers and identifying businesses with the real potential for profitable growth.