Martin Lau

Martin's colleagues describe him as having a "general ability to just be a good human." It's not the kind of thing you usually read in a professional bio, but it matters. He believes technology only succeeds when the people behind it do, and he's built his career around that principle.

He leads with empathy, not authority. He builds teams that trust each other, stay longer, and do their best work. That's not an accident. It's the result of choosing long-term impact over short-term wins, leading with empathy, and lifting people up instead of managing them down.

That people-first approach comes with deep technical credibility. Martin's written the code, managed the infrastructure, and sat in the meetings where executives make decisions about things they don't fully understand. He's fluent in both languages, which means he can talk to engineers and board members in the same room and have both walk away feeling heard.

For eleven years, he served as CTO at Citation Group, a leading workplace relations and HR technology business. He started with a team of two and left leading 70+ people across Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, and Hungary. His remit covered product development, ISO 27001 certification, and cybersecurity. His team's security practices were adopted as the standard across Citation's global business.

He's been on both sides of the M&A table. Buy-side, sell-side, due diligence, post-acquisition integration. He represented technology interests through multiple transactions, shaped investment theses, and led the messy work of making acquisitions actually deliver value. When you've been under the hood of that many businesses, you learn to spot what's real and what's held together with hope and good intentions.

Martin built hps.gd because he believes businesses deserve advisors who care about people as much as outcomes. His approach is straightforward: focus on what matters, be honest about what you find, and leave things better than you found them.