We empower the world’s innovators to become growth leaders.
A TALENT & GROWTH STRATEGY FIRM GUIDING TRANSFORMATIVE JOURNEYS FROM SERIES A, ASX TO FORTUNE 50.
At High Performance People, we are navigators of the new economy.
We bring a full lifecycle approach to your talent and growth strategy, through our domain expertise and an on-demand service ecosystem as unique as your journey.
Our Perform IQ model uses predictive analytics to help you hire, develop and sustain a high-performing team and culture – and to embed an operating playbook – one that lays the very foundations of scalability.
While our Forebrite platform uses predictive analytics to turn your data into a strategic powerhouse – and optimise your marketing performance, capitalise on future trends, convert high-value customers and deliver revenue growth.
Our services are custom-fit, and can dialled up, down, or off as priorities shift to maximise ROI:
Executive Search: our Perform IQ model qualifies the 14% of talent who can perform today & transform for tomorrow.
Talent-as-a-Service: our best-practice team & HR playbook drives people performance across the entire talent lifecycle.
Growth-as-a-Service: our data-driven platform, Forebrite, continuously optimises marketing, sales & financial performance.
Board Advisory: our network of luminary experts, ex-founders & operators provide invaluable insight to accelerate expansion.
Performance & Executive Coaching: our programs develop the mindset, behaviour & skills needed to thrive in today’s economy.
Create what is next,
right now.
We don’t do different, we are.
Our vision is to rapidly establish the transformative talent, operational, and growth frameworks that empower a new generation of innovation and technology ventures to lead their sectors.
Creating a paradigm-shift in scalability, freeing up our clients to focus on higher value strategic work, and cultivating an approach to leadership that drives sustainable, inclusive growth in the new economy.
Growth Leadership – encapsulating the mindset, vision, values and skills needed to perform today, and to transform a business to compete tomorrow.
Our multi-dimensional assessment and development model shows that only 14% of leaders have what it takes. Global research studies also show Growth Leaders are 2.4x more likely to outperform their peers, and 97% more likely to achieve profitable above-peer growth.
Areas of focus include:
Technology & Communications (incl. AI, machine learning, blockchain & data science)
Digital Media, Sport & Entertainment
Retail & Ecommerce
HealthTech
PropTech
FashionTech
FinTech
EdTech
Private Equity & Portfolio Companies
Our talent-as-a-service matters.
We believe in disrupting the status quo, not to just do things better – but to do better things.
Our TaaS model was born out of global media and technology giants launching new Australian products and platforms - asking if we could hire and build-out their entire leadership and cross-functional teams, projects we delivered with award-winning results.
Today our specialised team delivers solutions across the full talent lifecycle, and can operate as your embedded People function, fill specific gaps in your HR team, transform your people strategy end-to-end, or provide an outsource solution for talent acquisition.
We know what it’s like to walk in the founder’s shoes, so we set a new and higher standard.
Benefits include:
End-to-end solutions: incl. generalist HR, talent acquisition, executive coaching, onboarding and leadership programs.
Flexible fee-model: customisation for cost control, reduced risk, evolving priorities and performance-based alignment.
Lower cost-per-hire: from entry-level to fractional CMO, our streamlined workflows and referral network reduces cost.
Culture & goal-alignment: our methodology ensures every hire is in sync with your vision, values, mission and strategy.
Communication & feedback loops: ongoing check-ins ensure all goals are met, identifying and closing capability gaps.
Growth-as-a-service: powered by data.
At every scalable venture, success is predicting your customers future needs.
Say hello to Forebrite, our platform that statistically analyses your target audience, optimises data-driven insights and drives repeatable revenue growth.
A managed service, our own Growth Co-Pilot even does all the heavy lifting for you too.
Our GaaS model is trailblazing - with a software & AI-powered engine that factors-in market trends and seasonality - transforming your historical and current data into a decision-making powerhouse.
With early clients in healthcare technology, pet services, aggregation platforms & online marketplaces achieving 5x ROI immediately, Forebrite’s success brings a website of its own: forebrite.com
Benefits include:
* United marketing & financial data: to provide a holistic overview of your business performance and customer behaviour.
* Full-service platform: incl. data integration, upfront modeling, workshops and weekly updates, we run Forebrite for you.
* Real-time data insights: to identify growth opportunities, optimise marketing performance and drive repeatable revenue.
* Budget reallocation: our platform attributes marketing activities to actual revenue, measures ROI and reallocates budget.
* Scenario modeling: to factor-in seasonality and new trends, forecast growth pathways and offer new products & services.
Partnerships from Series A to Fortune 50:
We turn your vision, into a predictable reality.
Our mission for mutual success
At High Performance People, doing better things means embodying a higher purpose.
Early on, we faced a decision: follow the model of a traditional talent firm, or break the status quo and set off on a much bolder mission:
To deliver sustainable and inclusive growth for innovation and technology ventures by bringing together the power of predictive analytics and the philosophy of Growth Leadership.
Our values of daring to disrupt, being courageous to innovation, standing up for diversity & valuing progress over perfection underpin it.
Meet our creators.
James - Founder & Head of Talent
James Burke is the driving force behind High Performance People. After launching executive search firm The Ladder in 2003, James gave it a bold makeover in 2013, rebranding to embrace the firm’s expanding suite of leadership advisory services.
Never one to shy away from innovation, James created Perform IQ alongside notable psychologists – a model that doesn’t only accurately predict a leader’s ability to perform right now, but also assesses their potential to transform businesses for the future. Adoption of Perform IQ has manifested into masterclasses for start-ups, growth ventures, and digitally powered enterprises, equipping HR professionals with a holistic strategy to identify, develop and retain high-potential employees.
Head of the firm’s executive search & recruitment practice, James has subsequently designed a client-centric playbook that sets the industry’s benchmark, with a guarantee that’s overseen the firm’s 100% placement rate across 1,200+ assignments. As the catalyst behind our breakthrough Talent-as-a-Service and Growth-as-a-Service, he’s brought about a powerful synergy that’s proving instrumental to the success of industry entrepreneurs, disruptors, and innovators across the region.
When he’s not building partnerships with pre- and post-IPO, James can be found enjoying his passion for sport, music and next renovation project. If there’s a decent wave nearby, you can also find him still trying to surf.
Emma - Partner & Head of Operations
Emma Delory is our not-so-secret weapon and mastermind behind our operational symphony. A research and operations specialist, Emma rewrites the 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 Talent-as-a-Service partnerships – she specialises in identifying, screening and interviewing candidates through Perform IQ for junior to mid-level roles.
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.
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 a new ‘pedal to the metal’ world
Business leaders faced an all-time-high rate of change in 2024, spurred by rapid advancements in generative AI according to Accenture’s new Pulse of Change index, and the pace will accelerate 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.
Growth Partners : 8 skills, beliefs & behaviours shaping law firm leadership in 2025.
Law firms have always had to adapt to change to remain profitable and relevant to clients, but 2025 looks to be the year in which law firm leadership experiences a transformative shift.
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.
Make an enquiry
Ways to get in touch
If you're not a forms-kinda-person, simply email us - hello@hppeople.com