A talent & growth advisory firm for the Intelligence Age.
LEADERS - FROM SERIES A TO ASX - RELY ON US TO RE-ENGINEER THEIR COMPANIES FOR PROFITABLE GROWTH.
At High Performance People, we know predictability is the force multiplier for scalable, profitable growth.
That’s why our dual operating system turns your talent and growth strategies into high-ROI levers — built to take you up every S-curve, faster and smarter.
Our talent OS, Perform IQ, uses predictive intelligence to shape your leadership, culture, operating rhythms and teams so they thrive in dynamic, high-pressure, high-growth environments.
Our growth OS, Forebrite, uses predictive analytics to design your demand engine — turning data into foresight, trends into firepower, and ambition into profit.
Our services can be dialled up, down or off as your priorities change:
Executive Search: our Perform IQ model identifies the 14% of leaders who can perform today & transform for tomorrow.
People-as-a-Service: our on-demand HR & Talent solutions are tailor-made to reduce overhead costs & fuel top-line growth.
Growth-as-a-Service: our software & AI-powered platform maximises your marketing ROI & financial performance repeatedly.
Fractional Flying Squad: our scale-up experts bring temporary, targeted, high-growth expertise to your mission-critical projects.
Talent & Skill Development: our coaching, leadership & team workshops turn your people’s latent potential into goal achievement.
Two systems, one engine.
Every S-curve.
We don’t do different, we are.
We scale companies for a living. We build your scaffolding — AI-ready HR, performance-driven talent, ops, processes and systems — and sit beside you as operators, not spectators, pulling the marketing and commercial levers that grow revenue and compound profit. No theatre. Just outcomes.
On demand. Data-first. Your bespoke growth plan:
People-as-a-Service: we drop in the leaders, operators and operating rhythms you need in days, not quarters. Less org spaghetti, more velocity. No bloat. No warm benches. That’s why many of the world’s most innovative companies rely on us.
Growth-as-a-Service: our platform + pilot unite your leadership and teams around a single source of truth — your North Star Metric. Test what-ifs, forecast revenue, and move budget in near-time. Shift from lagging reports to leading indicators and turn foresight into weekly, visible, defensible growth.
The enabler: our Fractional Flying Squad — when the stakes are high, we roll in your strike team to keep product, sales, marketing, finance and ops in lockstep. Operators only — hands, not slides. We’ve launched unicorns, led billion-dollar brands and scaled AI-driven systems that compress timelines, cut costs and multiply returns.
Our vision: turn your ambition into intelligent, precision-driven growth — on demand — giving you capital-efficient, enterprise-grade access to the talent, systems and technology that accelerate performance and lock in lasting advantage (without hiring an army).
Our areas of focus:
Digital Media, Sport & Entertainment
eCommerce & Subscription Platforms
ConsumerTech
Software, Cloud & SaaS
Venture Capital & Private Equity
HealthTech & Life Sciences
FinTech
AI & Machine Learning
EdTech & Online Learning
Hospitality Tech & TravelTech
People-as-a-Service: Human + AI.
Our People-as-a-Service gives you access to world-class HR & Talent expertise — on-demand, flexible, and overhead-free.
Whether you’re building your first HR function, need a bespoke L&D solution, or hiring for hyper-growth, we design solutions that fast-track your business goals.
Our multi-disciplinary team brings deep insight and empathy, having guided ventures from Series A to the Fortune 50 and led organisations of scale through award-winning transformation.
Our edge is Perform IQ — AI-driven predictive intelligence that optimises HR processes, streamlines workflows, secures the top 5% of talent, and shapes high-performing leaders, teams, and culture.
PaaS delivers exactly what you need, precisely when you need it. Check out our full e-brochure here.
Benefits include:
Economy: we run HR & Talent health checks to define objectives & design a proposal aligned to your budget.
Expertise: we connect you to top-tier HR & Talent experts who achieve measurable outcomes vs. box-ticking.
Strategy: we design flexible HR & Talent roadmaps you can scale up or down any time as your priorities shift.
Impact: we use AI-automation & Perform IQ insights to optimise your workflow, process & system efficiencies.
Support: we provide services incl. L&D, workplace law & WH&S compliance to strengthen your People function.
Growth-as-a-Service: Platform + Pilot.
Growth-as-a-Service fuses our predictive analytics platform with a team of Growth Strategists — giving you both the engine and the pilot.
Forebrite builds a 360-degree, single view of your data — showing exactly what every part of your marketing suite is contributing to organisational success, from PR to performance media. The result? Your own proprietary Predictive Marketing Engine.
But even the best engine needs a pilot. That’s where our team steps in: turning models into momentum with weekly action plans, live dashboards, and near-time reporting — all aligned to a single source of truth: your North Star Metric.
The payoff? Complexity becomes clarity. CLTV climbs. CAC drops. Market share gets captured faster — by investing where it matters most.
Clients across eCommerce, healthcare, pet care, and subscription associations are already reporting 40%+ MROI uplifts — proof the model works in the real world. Check out our full e-brochure here.
Why it works:
Alignment: we unite functional leaders around your North Star Metric to ensure your revenue growth is profitable.
Foresight: we prioritise visibility into future market trends & customer behaviour to enable strategic adjustments.
Acceleration: we action insights in near-time so you can capitalise on market opportunities faster than your peers.
Scalability: we build-in annual planning, workshops & weekly reports to refine your model & optimise your strategy.
ROI: we track every $ of marketing spend from PR to performance media, identifying cross-channel opportunities.
Partnerships from Series A, ASX to Fortune 50:
Re:code data into profit, with Forebrite.
Who we are.
We scale ambitious companies faster, smarter, and with less risk — by hardwiring intelligence into the two levers that matter most: talent and growth.
Our dual OS — Perform IQ (talent intelligence) and Forebrite (growth intelligence) — fuses seasoned operators with software and AI, turning strategy into an operating model that’s predictable, repeatable, and ROI-obsessed.
We’re commercial and principled. We level the playing field for founders and leaders — while opening real pathways for under-represented communities. Every team member signs that commitment.
Our values:
Daring to Disrupt: We challenge the status quo and seek groundbreaking solutions.
Courageous Innovation: We embrace bold ideas and conscientiously push boundaries.
Standing Up for Diversity: We champion inclusive environments and opportunities for all.
Valuing Progress Over Perfection: We prioritize building and flying our plane simultaneously.
Meet our creators.
James – Founder, Commercial Director & Head of Talent
James Burke is the ambitious, relentless driving force behind HPP’s evolution. After launching The Ladder in 2003, which quickly became a globally recognised executive search firm, James risked it all and gave it a bold makeover in 2013, rebranding to embrace the firm’s expanded offering.
At the centre of which is Perform IQ, which James co-created with PhD-level psychologists – a talent model that brings the science of human performance and emerging world of predictive analytics together. After successful trials with HPP’s partner clients, adoption of Perform IQ quickly manifested through HR & Talent Acquisition masterclasses for scale-ups, PE & VC firms, growth ventures, and digitally powered enterprises.
Not they type to sit still, alongside his day job as Head of Talent James has gone on to devise and launch People-as-a-Service in conjunction with Australia’s foremost HR Leaders. Changing the game further, he also leapt into the opportunity to develop Forebrite with Vlad, leaning into software and AI early on to help industry entrepreneurs, disruptors, and innovators across the region pull on their biggest growth levers.
In quieter moments he’ll occasionally writes about ‘Growth Leadership’, synthesising what he’s learning working with world-class clients, but he’s more likely to be found learning the art of renovation, having a Guinness, working-out or flapping about in the water still trying to surf.
Emma - Partner & Head of Operations
Emma Delory is our not-so-secret weapon and the mastermind behind our operational symphony. A research and operations specialist, Emma rewrites the ground rules of efficiency – orchestrating the infrastructure that fuels our growth, conducting day-to-day workflows, and composing valuable content for our marketing and social media.
An early adopter who is ‘at one’ with emerging technology, Emma has taken the reins of leveraging artificial intelligence at High Performance People, spearheading the integration of tools including ChatGPT, Copilot, Perplexity, and Gamma. Emma’s many talents don’t just end there either – a key cog in our fast-expanding People-as-a-Service & Growth-as-a-Service partnerships – she’s as adept at interviewing candidates as she is writing proposal documents.
Multi-lingual, everything comes easily to Emma. After travelling the world previously as a senior marketer and business consultant, hiring teams across continents and running workshops for hundreds of clients on growth strategy, High Performance People is really just home from home.
When she’s not making the magic happen at work, Emma’s a wannabe yogi, fashionista and devoted dog-lover, with an unnaturally healthy attitude to food. Except for weekends, when there’s no holding her back.
Sophie - Partner & Head of People
Sophie Needham embodies the centre of excellence that sits behind our People Practice and defines the firm’s social conscience and cultural ethos. Authentic and results-driven, Sophie is our go-to for cutting-edge HR strategy, organisational design, all things HR operations, learning and development, change management, people & culture and transformation.
Well versed in the complexities of driving change across the technology, digital, media, and business consulting landscape, Sophie’s superpower is turning ambiguity into clear and actionable plans that deliver impact. An accomplished communicator, collaborator and relationship builder, Sophie is a hands-on operator across the full talent lifecycle, excelling at aligning people strategies with business goals and cultivating high performing teams and engagement.
Now playing the roles of mentor, coach and confidante to many of our clients’ CEOs and leadership teams, not only when it’s time to ‘course correct’ but also on challenging issues around diversity, inclusion, and wellbeing, Sophie’s straight forward counsel is widely sought. A champion of the business case for DE&I, Sophie’s ability to weave a powerful solution into a killer HR strategy is helping our clients to attract top talent from around the world.
When she’s not humanising the function of HR, Sophie supports great causes and heads up HPP’s for-purpose mission. You’ll find her on weekends spending quality time with family and friends, enjoying the outdoors, catching a live music act or trying a new dining experience.
Vlad – Partner & Head of Growth
Vlad Mehakovic is the growth strategist every founder, innovator and leadership team needs to have on speed dial. Part technologist, innovator, data analyst and strategic marketer, Vlad is the sum of diverse and impressive in-depth expertise, amassed in leadership roles from Series A to ASX 100.
A visionary, Vlad pioneered the early prototypes of Forebrite’s predictive marketing platform with ventures including Laundromap, Providoor, MoleMap, MedView and Hanrob to find perfect product-market fit. A long-term ally of James, it made sense to join forces and break down the barriers that typically prevent clients’ success – which beyond having a smart team, in his case means helping clients to engineer a winnable growth strategy and to drive profitable revenue.
In truth, Vlad breathes predictive intelligence. Whenever he’s bending statistical software, artificial intelligence or building ML tools, he’s only looking to automate model building, evaluation and deployment so there’s more time to focus on customer behaviour, future trends, and monetisation. Which as a former CMO, CTO and CEO, he has a remarkable capacity to synthesise into a language that’s quickly relatable.
When he’s not talking all things North Star metrics, Vlad is a proud health & fitness fanatic, an adoring husband, and a newly minted father of two. Free time? Let’s just say weekends are now officially booked solid.
Our latest thinking…
Articles
Growth Leadership: New Leadership for the Intelligence Age
Business leaders faced an all-time-high rate of change in 2024, spurred by rapid advancements in generative AI according to Accenture’s Pulse of Change index, and the pace will continue throughout 2025 and beyond.
40 Habits of Growth Leaders
Worst First: Start your day by tackling the most unpleasant task. Getting it out of the way early sets a productive tone for the rest of the day.
Peak Times: Figure out when you're most productive and schedule your important tasks during those times. Save less demanding tasks for your off-peak hours.
The Marketing Growth Engine: Supercharging Performance
We live in a time of abundant growth potential. However, the same proliferation of marketing channels, data and activities that create this growth potential can make it difficult to prioritise marketing budgets and efforts. Marketers are spoilt for choice and drowning in data. And that can be more crippling than enabling.
Enough about us, let’s talk about you.
Are you readying your business to thrive in an increasingly digital and interconnected world – or launching something new?
We appreciate hearing from our clients and network. If you would like to contact us to discuss any of our services, ask for career advice or to simply provide confidential feedback on your experience with our business, please send us a message.
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Ways to get in touch
If you're not a forms-kinda-person, simply email us - hello@hppeople.com