People & HR Director || Technology Start-Ups & Scale-Ups

I specialise in helping private equity–backed and investor-led businesses realise value through people, leadership and operating execution, particularly across FinTech and Financial Services environments undergoing growth, acquisition and transformation.

My work often starts at the point where transactions become reality. I support Boards, investors and executive teams to translate deal intent into scalable operating models, leadership capability and organisational structures that protect value, accelerate performance and enable sustainable growth beyond Day One.

Over the past decade, I have led complex integrations, carve-outs and restructurings across international markets, including the acquisition and integration of global businesses within regulated financial services and high-growth technology sectors. This has included scaling organisations across multiple geographies, building enterprise-grade people and governance frameworks, and supporting successful exits for institutional investors.

I am particularly effective in entering businesses to assess, stabilise and strengthen leadership, reduce people-related execution risk, and align workforce strategy to commercial ambition. While not a career “BAU HR leader”, I step into operational leadership roles where required, with a mandate to professionalise, simplify and leave behind stronger capability.

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WHAT OTHERS SAY

"Dylan guided the Board with regards to leadership transition at the Company, and executed with integrity and action throughout the restructuring and acquisition programme."
- Farooq Jaffrey, Fintech Venture Capital Investments

"As COO, Dylan worked closely with the CEO to implement a turnaround strategy and successfully positioned the company for its successful acquisition by Trading Technologies."
- Mark Rodrigues, Venture Partner, Illuminate Financial

"In an extremely fast moving and challenging environment, Dylan joined the Integration Team leading the People, Culture and Comms workstream of 200 people from Reg-Room and Thompson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence into CUBE. He hit the ground running, prioritising and delivering urgent and strategic requirements from his first morning."
- Andrew Scola, M&A Director, ex Deloitte, PwC

"What Dylan doesn't know about M&A you could write on your toenail!  He is super knowledgeable, knows his way around M&A like the back of his hand and is SUPER patient. He is objective, thoughtful and puts the employees first - always."
- Elinor Brett, FCIPD, CPO

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Dylan Roberts

Most M&A deals that fail don't fail in Excel, or in a deal sheet. They fail in Teams and random corridor conversations.

If you tackle an acquisition or a carve out, and don’t have a clear people integration plan front and centre, you’re not managing risk. You’re deferring it.

Successful PE models assume execution. People determine whether execution actually happens.

People risk is deal risk. Ignore it at your peril.

#mergersandacquisitions #peopleintegration #privateequity

Interim People Leader | HR Change & Transformation | M&A People Integration | Executing the People Agenda for PE-Backed Firms

Web3, RWA (SHOPX), & AI (dataing) Entrepreneur | President & Founder | Muay Thai & Chess #blessed

Nice to meet you, my name is Eric and I hope you are having a wonderful day. 

My Intention is to spread as much positivity as possible.

Present Manrta - As above, so below, As within, so without.

Present Motto  - I do what I feel like and trust anything is possible.

Present Inner purpose - Raise the collective level of consciousness 

Present Interest - Web3, AI, Quantum Spirituality, Masculine development, Fitness.

Present Hobbies - Chess, Muay Thai, meditation, reading, anything under the sun.

Present Recommendation - Reality transurfing. Steps I-V and vipassana meditation

Dataing - AI-powered match matching with the goal of matching 1 billion happy couples

“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”
― Nikola Tesla

Eric McHugh☀️🌙

A SF escape room called “The Permanent Underclass” and it’s just a room with a laptop and Claude Code installed.

It’s a funny joke, but it’s rooted in a fear-based narrative.

Fear is how people are controlled. 

Faith is how they create.

AI isn’t here to lock people into an underclass. 

It’s here to remove friction, amplify natural talents, and expand the amount of value humans can create. 

That’s the future we’re building toward at dataing: AI as support, not replacement, helping people learn more about themselves, a match with people who bring out the best in them.

AI with Data for Human Connection and Social Good @dataing

This is exactly why we’re building the dataing Data Marketplace. 

Not scraped. Not farmed. Opt-in, permissioned, and paid. Think Anti Facebook.

As automation scales, AI systems will depend on human judgment, creativity, and preference to learn at the frontier. 

Every decision, correction, and demonstration becomes training signal. 

That makes human data a core economic input, not a byproduct.

That’s why human data becomes a $1T+/year market:
intelligence compounds on structured human experience.

If AI is powered by human data, humans should own it, consent to it, and earn from it.

People are using dataing to plan real dates.

We believe relationships work best when intention comes before action.

Dataing is intentionally built to put users in a position to succeed.

After two people connect, Cupid becomes a relationship concierge, helping plan dates, offering guidance, and supporting connection as it unfolds.

Because Dataing supports what comes after the match, we’re incentivized to create compatible ones.

The dataing Data Marketplace will enable instant personalization and monetization by letting developers and users earn from AI-powered apps built on permissioned human data, which in itself is a trillion dollar industry.

Here is the latest marketplace update from Antonio, and a sincere thank you to the Stacks ecosystem for the support.

The dataing Data Marketplace will include:

• User-owned datasets with flexible pricing and earnings tracking
• Built-in and custom schemas, including automatic schema generation from CSVs
• Privacy-first PII detection and sanitization
• Advanced querying and analytics
• x402 payments with STX and sBTC
• On-chain receipts and full audit trails
• AI-powered natural-language search across datasets

Don’t trust, verify 👇

I joined Raymond, a top 10 The New York Times best-selling author on a podcast to talk about building, relationships, and the unseen forces that shape outcomes.

Much of the conversation centered on a quiet but important idea:

Technology reveals its values through what it optimizes.

We touched on:
• Why incentives quietly determine behavior
• Why endless choice weakens alignment
• How real compatibility emerges from signals, not self-promotion
• And why building anything meaningful starts inward, not outward

Dating apps are a clear example.

If success threatens profit, the system will resist success.

dataing was built on a different premise: fewer matches, better matches, and continued support after the introduction—evolving from matchmaking into something closer to a relationship concierge.

The same patterns show up everywhere in products, partnerships, and people.

As within, so without.

Listen here:

Open article: EP351: Eric McHugh - Giant Improvement In Dating App by open.spotify.com

EP351: Eric McHugh - Giant Improvement In Dating App

Everyone’s talking about the penguin.

Walking alone.

Cold, slow, ignored.

No shortcuts. No crowd. Just direction. 🐧❄️

There are a few lessons we can take from that.

But the truth is, dataing hasn’t been walking alone.

We’ve been incredibly lucky and grateful for the support we’ve received from our users, our community, our builders, our early believers, our partners and everyone who’s shared feedback, time, and trust with us. 

Every conversation, every download, every message of encouragement has been an important ingredient in what we’re building.

This journey only works because of people.

And as we keep moving forward, it’s worth remembering the intention behind it all:

dataing exists to leverage AI to bring people and experiences together, to help real connections happen, and to support them with care, depth, and understanding.

Most AI tells you what you want to hear.

Cupid AI is designed to tell you what’s best for you.

There’s a big difference between validation and guidance, between short-term comfort and long-term alignment.

That philosophy is exactly why we’re building Dataing.

Not just to help people get matches, but to support better choices before, during, and after the match, so connections are more compatible, more intentional, and more likely to last.

In a dream yesterday, a nameless shadow ascended the black and white mountain.

Both heroes and monsters fell by his hand.

Unbroken, he entered the ruined temple of a long-forgotten god.

He made an offering upon the sacred alter.

The gods were dead, and yet they listened...

Your trial is over they said.

Your final appraisal, glorious

Your treachery and love truly knows no bounds.

You have been bestowed a true name. 

Dream ends. smh

I sent Mark a Yu-Gi-Oh Jinzo reel on IG yesterday for the first time.

Later that day, Mark asked Cupid what Yu-Gi-Oh card I would be.

Cupid answered: Jinzo.

Two separate moments.

Same archetype.

When your mind is clear and your path is aligned, the same truth appears from different directions.

Through thousands of iterations, Cupid is becoming increasingly accurate, and will only continue to get better at serving.

Thank you,

Eric

dataing - The first AI built for love

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Eric McHugh☀️🌙

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The Battle

Dylan Roberts

Eric McHugh☀️🌙

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Dylan Roberts's LinkedIn Performance

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