About Winning at Change
Change, done right.
A premium change management consultancy, training provider, and digital learning platform - built for the people who carry transformation on their shoulders.
Structured, evidence-led,
and deeply human.
Winning at Change helps leaders and organisations move through change the way it should be done: structured, evidence-led, and deeply human. From strategy through to adoption, we turn disruption into direction and uncertainty into measurable outcomes.
What sets us apart is our point of view. We pair the discipline of global change management best practice with the wisdom of African philosophy - building approaches that are not only technically sound, but culturally resonant in the contexts where they are applied.
Change does not happen to abstract "stakeholders." It happens to people, inside communities, shaped by history and relationship. We design for that reality.
Built from a conviction,
not a gap in the market.
Winning at Change was founded on a simple conviction: that the world's dominant change management models, however useful, were never written with Africa in mind.
After more than fifteen years leading transformation across financial services, mining, and insurance - including a global digital transformation programme touching roughly 180,000 employees - our founder, Lowen Smith, kept arriving at the same insight. The frameworks worked best when they were adapted to the people in the room, not imposed on them. The most durable change was the change that honoured how communities actually decide, commit, and move together.
That insight became a body of work: proprietary frameworks, practical toolkits, and a learning platform designed to equip practitioners rather than create dependency. Winning at Change exists to make that work accessible - to consultants, to internal change teams, to leaders, and to the next generation of African change practitioners.
Four capabilities.
One platform.
Whether you need a partner to lead a complex transformation, a programme to build your team's capability, or a toolkit you can put to work tomorrow - we meet you where you are.
Consulting & Advisory
Strategic change advisory, organisational change management, culture transformation, change readiness assessments, stakeholder engagement, executive workshops, and change governance.
Training & Certification
Public programmes, corporate training, workshops, webinars, and certification pathways for practitioners, HR and OD professionals, executives, and emerging talent.
Digital Toolkits
Production-ready, downloadable resources - templates, diagnostics, playbooks, surveys, dashboards, and workshop guides spanning traditional and agile change management.
The AFRICA Change Framework
Our flagship intellectual property: an African-rooted approach to change, available as an eBook, practitioner guide, facilitator toolkit, diagnostic tools, and certification programmes.
Our Mission
To help leaders and organisations succeed at change - by combining world-class change management practice with African-rooted insight, and by equipping practitioners with the frameworks, skills, and tools to deliver lasting results.
Our Vision
To become the leading authority on change management in Africa, and a respected global voice for a more inclusive, human-centred approach to transformation - building the professional infrastructure, intellectual property, and practitioner community that the discipline deserves.
What we stand for.
Ubuntu - people first.
I am because we are.
Change is a human experience before it is a technical one. We design for trust, dignity, and belonging.
Sankofa - learn forward.
Look back to move forward.
We draw on the past to build the future, honouring experience and context rather than discarding it.
Rigour.
Evidence-led, methodologically sound.
Our work is grounded in recognised global standards - not guesswork. We hold ourselves to the highest professional standard.
Practicality.
Built to be used, not admired.
We are relentlessly results-focused. Every framework, toolkit, and programme is built to be applied - the week you receive it.
Empowerment.
Capability, not dependency.
We build capability, not dependency. Our goal is to leave teams stronger and more self-sufficient than we found them.
Proudly African, globally fluent.
Local relevance. International standard.
We hold local relevance and international best practice in the same hand - and we believe Africa has something to teach the world about change.
Fluent in global standards.
Rooted in African wisdom.
Most change management firms offer the same handful of imported models. We offer those too - our practice is fully fluent in the recognised global standards. But we go further.
The AFRICA Change Framework integrates principles drawn from African thought and practice - Ubuntu (shared humanity and collective belonging), Sankofa (learning from the past to move forward), Lekgotla (consultative, consensus-building dialogue), and Imbizo (inclusive community gathering and engagement).
The result is an approach to stakeholder engagement, sponsorship, and adoption that works because it reflects how people genuinely come together to commit to change. This is what allows us to sit comfortably in a multinational boardroom and a frontline operations meeting alike - and to deliver change that actually sticks.
Ubuntu
Shared humanity and collective belonging
Sankofa
Learning from the past to move forward
Lekgotla
Consultative, consensus-building dialogue
Imbizo
Inclusive community gathering and engagement
Lowen Smith
Founder & Principal Consultant
Sandton, Johannesburg
Credentials
- Prosci® / ADKAR® certified
- HCMBoK® (Human Change Management Body of Knowledge) certified
- SAFe® (Scaled Agile Framework) certified
- Disciplined Agile certified
- B.Sc., University of Natal
Lowen Smith
Founder & Principal Consultant · 15+ years in change and transformation
Lowen Smith is a senior change management and transformation executive with more than fifteen years of experience guiding complex change across some of Africa's most demanding sectors - financial services, mining, and insurance.
His signature work includes leading the digital transformation of health and safety systems at Anglo American, a global programme that impacted roughly 180,000 employees worldwide. Across his career he has held senior change and transformation roles with leading organisations including Anglo American, FNB, and Standard Bank, building a reputation for delivering change that is both rigorous and grounded in real human behaviour.
Lowen is the creator of the AFRICA Change Management Framework and the S.H.I.F.T. Framework - bodies of intellectual property that challenge the Western-centric orthodoxy of change management and offer practitioners an approach rooted in African philosophy and lived experience.
Beyond his corporate and consulting work, Lowen has a long-standing commitment to leadership development and community building - a thread that runs from his early years in youth leadership through to the mentoring and capability-building work he leads today. It is the same conviction that animates Winning at Change: that real, durable change is built through people, together.
Pan-African Experience
Select Organisations & Clients
Wherever you are in your
change journey.
There is a way to start. Choose the path that fits where you are right now.
Discover the AFRICA Framework
An African-rooted approach to change - and what it could mean for you.
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Helping leaders, organisations, and practitioners win at change.