Across industries, business leaders are under pressure to deliver growth, manage change, integrate new technologies and improve performance, often all at once. Yet many organisations are discovering that the real challenge is not a lack of ambition or strategy but rather making that change land across strategy, people, processes, systems and everyday decision-making.
That execution gap is the space High Performance Matters is entering. Founded by Lynn Madeley and Beverley Jones, HPM has launched as a founder-led consulting and executive coaching business built to help leadership teams move beyond strategy decks, fragmented advice and short-term fixes and embed the operating changes needed to improve performance.
With more than two decades of senior leadership experience across some of Africa’s largest marketing, communications and business environments, Madeley and Jones say the same pattern keeps appearing inside organisations: businesses fail because no one stays close enough, for long enough, to make the strategy real.
Lynn Madeley, co-founder and CEO of HPM, says: “HPM was created because too many leaders are expected to solve complex business problems with fragmented support. Strategy, people, process and systems cannot be treated as separate conversations. If one of them is misaligned, performance suffers. Our role is to work alongside leadership teams to diagnose what is really getting in the way, fix it with them, and help the change land.”
HPM launches at a time when AI is forcing organisations to confront exactly these kinds of operational questions. Many businesses are experimenting with new tools, but the harder work lies in clarifying roles, decision rights, data flows, accountability and team habits. Without that, AI risks becoming another layer of complexity rather than a driver of better performance.
Beverley Jones, co-founder and COO of HPM, says: “Every leadership team we speak to is wrestling with the same question: how do we actually integrate AI into how we operate, not just bolt it onto what we already do? That is an operational and human challenge before it is a technology challenge. It requires structure, discipline, trust and hands-on implementation.”
HPM’s model brings together consulting, fractional leadership and executive coaching, with a focus on partnership rather than prescription. The business works with CEOs, CMOs, managing directors and leadership teams across South Africa and the broader African region, helping them improve performance in ways that are human-centred and sustainable.
Its approach is deliberately practical. HPM works inside a business to understand what is happening beneath the surface, identify the few performance levers that matter most, and help teams build the systems and behaviours needed to sustain improvement.
Madeley describes it as a “Mary Poppins approach”.
“We arrive when things need sorting out. We are kind, but we are firm. We do not disappear the moment it gets uncomfortable, and we do not leave behind a report that nobody has the capacity to implement. We stay close enough to the work to help the new way of operating become habit. Then, and only then, do we leave.”
That emphasis on measurement and accountability is central to the business. HPM uses data to help leadership teams define what success should look like, track whether change is happening, and ensure that performance improvement is visible and repeatable.
“What gets measured gets done, but the measurement has to be meaningful. We help teams focus on the numbers that actually matter, not dashboards that create noise without changing behaviour.”
Joining Madeley and Jones is Grant Lapping, a specialist partner in digital media, data and technology, with two decades of experience across agencies, clients and publishers. His expertise strengthens HPM’s ability to help clients navigate increasingly complex performance ecosystems where media, data, technology and commercial decisions are now deeply connected.
Lapping adds: “Media, data and technology decisions are no longer narrow specialist decisions. They are business decisions. Grant brings a critical lens to that part of our work, particularly where clients need to make better sense of complexity, efficiency and measurable performance.”
The business is also fortunate to be including Andrea Bottega as its financial and commercial partner. Bottega has significant experience in the marcom space, having worked with several holding companies in his career across audit, tax and advisory. As a chartered accountant and registered auditor, his expertise strengthens HPM’s ability to help clients build the financial rigour, governance and commercial clarity need to translate strategy into measurable results.
“Financial performance is where strategy either lands or unravels. My role is to help leadership teams see the numbers clearly, strengthen the operating disciplines behind them and make sure the decisions being taken today build a business that is stronger, more resilient and worth more tomorrow.”
For HPM, the business is about changing the way leaders are supported through periods of pressure, transition and reinvention.
About High Performance Matters
High Performance Matters is a founder-led consulting and executive coaching business operating across South Africa and the broader African region. The firm partners with CEOs, CMOs, managing directors and leadership teams to improve organisational performance in ways that are commercially rigorous, human-centred and sustainable. Built around an integrated strategy, people, process and systems approach, HPM offers consulting, fractional leadership and executive coaching, with a focus on partnership, capability transfer and sustainable performance.
