Martin Lau

Martin's career in technology started in an unlikely place: the Australian Government's Office of National Assessments, the country's peak intelligence analysis organisation. That's where his interest in computer science really took off, and it set a tone for everything that followed: work that matters, done properly, with no room for shortcuts.

From there he moved into system administration and software development, then into architecture and team leadership. He studied at the University of Canberra and has been based in Brisbane for years. Close enough to the action, far enough to think clearly. Along the way he's worked across government, private sector, and PE-backed environments, picking up the kind of breadth that only comes from actually doing the work in very different settings.

A defining chapter was his decade-long tenure as CTO at Citation Group, one of Australia's leading workplace relations, HR, and compliance businesses. He joined as an architect on their flagship HR software product and grew into a role overseeing the full technology function: infrastructure, product development, ISO certification, security, and AI adoption. He managed distributed teams across Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Hungary, and Sri Lanka, and navigated a major acquisition and rebrand when Citation UK entered the picture. No two days were the same, and that's how he likes it.

That journey gave him something you can't get from a textbook: the ability to talk to engineers and board members in the same meeting and have both groups walk away feeling heard. He's fluent in the language of technology and the language of business, and he's spent his career translating between the two.

M&A is where a lot of that experience came together. Martin's been on both sides of the table, buy-side and sell-side, leading technology due diligence, representing tech interests through acquisitions, and handling the messy reality of post-deal integration. When you've assessed dozens of businesses under the hood, you develop a sharp eye for what's actually working and what's held together with duct tape.

On the technical side, he's led large-scale cloud migrations, built ISO 27001 compliance programmes from scratch, and delivered security outcomes that set the bar for the organisations he's worked in. He's deeply interested in how AI can be applied pragmatically. Not the hype-cycle version, but genuine productivity gains, smarter decision-making, and finding efficiencies that actually stick. Strategy, cybersecurity, digital transformation, operational excellence: he's done the lot, and he's got the scars to prove it.

What ties it all together is a genuine interest in people. Martin leads with empathy, not authority. He builds teams that trust each other, creates environments where people do their best work, and has a track record of uplifting the people around him, not just the technology. He's calm under pressure, direct when it matters, and allergic to corporate theatre.

Martin built hps.gd because he believes businesses deserve better than what most consultancies offer. His approach is straightforward: care about the people, focus on what matters, and leave things better than you found them.