Who we are.
Our team commits to:
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 prioritise building and flying our plane simultaneously.
We believe in levelling the playing field for founders, innovators and entrepreneurs and we hold our ourselves to that standard.
Meet our creators.
James – Founder & Chief Growth Officer
James Burke powers HPP’s evolution. He founded The Ladder in 2004, then boldly rebranded 10+ years on to expand the mission. He then co-created Perform IQ with PhD-level psychologists, blending performance science with predictive analytics, fine-tuning it into a series of masterclasses for scale-ups, PE/VC, and digital businesses.
Never one to sit still, James also devised and launched People-as-a-Service with Australia’s foremost HR leaders. Pushing further, he co-founded Growth-as-a-Service & Forebrite with Vlad, leaning into software and AI early on to help entrepreneurs, disruptors, and innovators pull their biggest growth levers. In his world, the power of new technology means he’s just getting started.
Off the tools, you’ll find him learning the art of renovation, enjoying a Guinness, working out, or flailing about in the water still trying to surf.
Rebecca - Partner & Head of Talent Advisory
Rebecca Ferreira is a Partner and Head of Talent Acquisition at HP People, bringing more than 15 years’ experience helping Australian startups and scale-ups build teams that actually perform. A former founder herself, Rebecca blends deep talent expertise with sharp commercial judgement, advising bootstrapped, PE and VC-backed businesses across Australia, Europe, S.E. Asia and North America.
Networked globally, Rebecca has supported over 100 startups through critical growth phases, designing scalable hiring strategies, building compelling candidate experiences, and embedding pragmatic, founder-friendly processes. Her approach consistently delivers results, including a 99% offer acceptance rate and a complete reduction in reliance on external recruitment agencies.
Known for her direct, confident style and ability to build rapport quickly at all levels, Rebecca brings clarity, energy and calm to complex hiring challenges. Strategic yet deeply human in her approach, she is trusted by founders and candidates alike for her honesty, insight and unwavering commitment to getting the right outcomes.
Fay - Senior People Partner
Fay Theiss builds talent operating systems for innovation ventures, scale-up & PE portfolio companies, turning messy change into high-functioning teams and fit-for-purpose systems. A champion our PaaS offering, she expertly diagnoses where organisations get stuck so results land.
Her craft blends strategy and execution. Fay has stood up HR from scratch, hardwiring systems and operating rhythms through workforce planning, success profiles, performance frameworks, and manager coaching that turns expectations into habits. She’s also at home rolling out ATS/HRIS and analytics, architecting leadership and onboarding initiatives, and rebooting the employee experience end-to-end.
In possession of Brazilian, Italian and Australian passports, Fay is perhaps unsurprisingly a hybrid-work advocate, our self-appointed cultural ambassador and resident bon vivant.
Chris – Head of Fractional Advisory
Chris Jowsey leads HPP’s Fractional Advisory practice, with 20+ years building and scaling growth functions inside global tech brands. A former CMO and seasoned operator, he’s held senior roles across eCommerce, sales, marketing and product-led growth, with deep P&L accountability in high-growth environments.
Alongside HPP, Chris runs Nugget Digital as a Fractional CMO and principal consultant to eCommerce leaders, scale-ups and tech businesses. He’s worked with brands including Lenovo, Dell, Microsoft and OneAffiniti, leading global rebrands, international expansion and digital transformations across APAC and beyond.
Known for a pragmatic, outcomes-first style, Chris helps founders, CEOs and boards diagnose growth constraints, set clear priorities, and turn strategy into action fast. He also co-hosts a community for Aussie marketers to stay close to what’s working in-market.
Vlad – Partner & Head of Product & Growth
Vlad Mehakovic is the kind of growth strategist that founders and exec teams keep on speed dial. Part creative technologist, data analyst, innovator, and strategic marketer, he brings a particularly unique breadth & depth of experience from leadership roles that have spanned Series A through to the ASX 100.
A long-time ally of James, Vlad co-built Forebrite’s early prototypes with ventures like Laundromap, Providoor, MoleMap, MedView and Hanrob to crack product-market fit. He breaks down the barriers to scale by engineering winnable growth strategies and driving profitable revenue with a ruthless focus on outcomes.
A former CMO, CTO and CEO, he translates the impossibly technical stuff into instantly usable playbooks. Outside work he’s a health nut, devoted husband, and new dad of two. So yes, weekends are always fully booked.
Emma - Partner & Head of Business Operations
Emma Delory is our operations maestro and research specialist, the engine behind HPP’s day-to-day rhythm and growth infrastructure. She streamlines workflows, builds the systems that scale, and turns insight into sharp marketing and social content.
An early adopter, Emma leads our AI stack and has integrated ChatGPT, Copilot, Perplexity, and Gamma. A key player across People-as-a-Service and Growth-as-a-Service, she’s as comfortable interviewing candidates as she is crafting proposals and playbooks for new clients.
Multilingual with global experience in senior marketing and consulting, Emma has hired across continents and run large-scale growth workshops. Outside work she’s a wannabe yogi, fashion tragic, and devoted dog-lover with a healthy approach to food (weekends excluded).