Who we are?
SAINT GAU is a specialist consultancy helping public and private organisations deliver complex change, deliver critical projects and plan for the future with confidence.
Our approach
INTEGRITY
We are committed to delivering genuine value, providing responsible support, and standing behind the success of the projects we take on. Integrity is our foundation for every customer relationship and every decision we make.
SUSTAINABILITY
We pursue value that lasts. Rather than focusing on short-term returns, we design and support projects that can sustain themselves over time, creating outcomes that remain viable, resilient, and beneficial in the long run.
EXCELLENCE
We hold ourselves to high standards in every interaction, activity, and project. We bring rigour, care, and continuous improvement to our work, aiming not only to meet expectations but to raise the bar for our clients and for our team.
Our team
We are a small, senior team with more than 1 years of hands-on experience across public and private sectors.
Our core strengths are IT and project management, sustainable planning, and social and environmental management, with deep expertise in risk, release and service management, and infrastructure.
Our wider expertise: manufacturing automation, line production, economics, data analysis, and other specialist disciplines.
Meet our team
The Saint-Gau Name
SAINT GAU takes its name from the Cupola di San Gaudenzio, the iconic dome that rises above Novara, a city in the Piedmont region of northern Italy.
Novara is Piedmont’s second-largest city, yet its history carries a reach far beyond its regional standing, a history that connects Italy, Austria, France, and Mexico.
A City of Battles and Turning Points
Novara has long been a crossroads of conflict and change. It was the site of the Battle of Novara in 1849, a decisive defeat for the Kingdom of Sardinia at the hands of Austrian Marshal Radetzky. That battle ended the hopes of King Charles Albert, who abdicated in favour of his son, Vittorio Emanuele II, on the very field of battle. The defeat was a profound setback for the cause of Italian unity, but it did not extinguish it. A decade later, the political vision of Cavour and the military alliance with Napoleon III of France helped turn the tide, contributing to the unification of Italy under Vittorio Emanuele II.
Italy would not become a republic, however, until 2 June 1946, when the Italian people voted in a referendum to abolish the monarchy and establish the Italian Republic, a date now celebrated as Festa della Repubblica. Novara’s story is thus woven into the broader, contested, and eventual consolidation of the Italian nation.
The Habsburg Thread and the Mexican Connection
The city’s history also carries a Habsburg and Mexican dimension. Before he became Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico, Archduke Maximilian of Habsburg served as Viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia from 1857 to 1859, a territory that included Novara and much of northern Italy. During this period, he organised the scientific circumnavigation expedition of the Austrian frigate SMS Novara, a ship named after the Battle of Novara.
That same vessel, the Novara, later carried Maximilian and his wife Carlota across the Atlantic in 1864 to take the throne of the Second Mexican Empire. In this way, a city in Piedmont gave its name to a ship, and that ship carried a European archduke to become the only emperor of Mexico. Novara was, briefly but genuinely, part of a transatlantic imperial story.
Why This Story Matters to Us
When we founded SAINT GAU, we found ourselves navigating a similarly layered question of origin. Our founding team was born in Mexico, yet some of us also hold European citizenships, including Spanish and Italian. Like the history of Novara itself, our identity is not confined to a single place. It is a convergence of geographies, histories, and perspectives.
The Cupola di San Gaudenzio (the dome that gives our name) stands as a symbol of that convergence: a landmark rooted in one city, yet shaped by the wider currents of European and Atlantic history. It represents what we aspire to be as a consultancy: locally grounded, internationally minded, and capable of holding complex, layered stories together with clarity and confidence.
