Projectworks: Scaling Globally with the Right People Foundations
Client: Projectworks | Industry: Technology (Professional Services SaaS) | Size: 55+ Employees
Projectworks has quietly become one of New Zealand’s great business success stories, not just because of what they’ve built, but because of how they’ve built it. They’re a great employer with strong values and a willingness to invest in doing things well.
The Company
Projectworks is a cloud-based platform designed for professional services firms to manage projects, people, and performance, all in one place. Launched in 2019, the company quickly gained traction, culminating in a successful US flip and a $100M Series A round in 2024. Now recognised as one of NZ’s fastest-growing tech companies, they’ve landed on the Inc. 5000, Deloitte Fast 50, and won NZ Hi-Tech Emerging Company of the Year.
The Challenge
As Projectworks transitioned from startup to scale-up, they faced the classic growing pains of a business with big ambitions: scaling recruitment, building leadership capability, hiring globally, and aligning their people infrastructure to support international expansion. They needed to grow fast, without losing their culture or slowing execution.
Our Approach
Since 2022, Humankind has partnered with Projectworks as a trusted advisor and hands-on delivery partner, working closely with the CEO, Founder, and leadership team to build a people function that matched their ambition.
Key support included:
- Scaled recruitment: Helped grow the team from 20 to 65, establishing consistent processes to support hiring quality and pace across borders.
- Leadership development: Equipped emerging and senior leaders with tools to lead at scale, drive performance, and manage through rapid change.
- Culture and systems codification: Developed a handbook, policies, and scalable people systems that reflected Projectworks’ values and set the standard for EX (employee experience).
- Organisational design: Advised on evolving structure and clarified accountabilities to align with strategy and growth stages.
- Strategic advice: Provided on-demand strategic support, acting as a sounding board through critical inflection points.
- Flexible support: Adapted our level of involvement around funding cycles, always delivering the right-sized impact at the right time.
The Outcome
Projectworks’ people investments have paid off, significantly.
- 800% revenue growth over three years
- $100M valuation at Series A
- #557 on Inc. Magazine’s 5000 fastest-growing US companies
- Winner: NZ Hi-Tech Emerging Company of the Year
- Named to the Deloitte Fast 50
- Successful Founder to New CEO transition
These results were enabled by strong people foundations:
- Scaled hiring of high-impact talent
- Lifted leadership capability, reducing founder dependency
- Increased leadership bandwidth to focus on growth
- Embedded, sustainable people systems that support future scale
Why This Partnership Matters to Humankind
Humankind isn’t just a service provider, we’re a scale partner. We flexed when Projectworks flexed. We moved at their speed. We matched their ambition. We helped their leadership team focus on growth, knowing the people side was in expert hands.
