System Shift
Our lives depend on systems that generate health and well-being, learning and work, care and housing. It is systems that create big outcomes.
But many people feel the systems we rely on are at best under strain, at worst failing and rigged against them.
We work with people who are building alternatives, based on different principles. We think this is a pivotal moment when systems can be set on a different trajectory, in which radical ideas put into action, even on a small scale, can have a big effect.
We create shared knowledge to power practical collaboration between people which can ripple out to shift entire systems. We help organisations and people find a strategic path forward, translating shared challenges into new possibilities.
Our Story
System Shift UK is led by Charlie Leadbeater and Celia Hannon, both based in London.
Charlie brings years of experience as trustee to leading foundations, an advisor to senior leaders and politicians, an award winning writer and a social entrepreneur. Celia brings particular expertise in foundation practice, organisational strategy, futures and systems psychodynamics. On our projects we work with a global network of associates who bring deep experience working as practitioners, social entrepreneurs or innovating inside foundations, NGOs, cities and governments.
The founding partners of System Shift in Denmark are Jennie Winhall and Johannes Bjorkman, both based in Copenhagen.
The common root to our work is the System Innovation Initiative, which Jennie, Johannes and Charlie developed at the ROCKWOOL foundation in Copenhagen, under the leadership of Helene Bie Lilleør. The System Innovation Initiative surfaced a huge desire for systems that are just and inclusive, circular and regenerative, participatory and cooperative. Yet the Initiative also found frustration because people lacked practical methods to make fundamental and wide-ranging shifts. That is what led us to System Shift’s focus on the “how” of systems change in practice.