About us
The people behind the shift
Two journeys, one conviction: potential only counts once it is implemented. Here is how we each got here and why we work the way we do.
Ann Baret
Shift Partner, The Dynamic Shift
Ann's Journey
I spent more than 20 years in the corporate world, starting in finance and later also leading HR and IT. But no matter what role I held, my real interest was always people.
I wanted to understand why some teams work and others don't. Why highly capable people can sit around the same table and still fail to work together. Why one department performs while another becomes stuck. And why a business can have a strong strategy, good people and plenty of activity — but still not get the results it should.
That curiosity has taken me on quite a journey.
I've trained in several personal-development modalities with some of the world's best teachers. I've attended more workshops and read more books than most people I know. And, in a very determined attempt to “fix” myself, I've probably tried more therapies than anyone I know — and trained in some of them too.
It took me a long time to understand that people don't need to be fixed.
They need to be understood. They need to know where they add value. They need clear roles, honest feedback, the right support and the freedom to use their strengths. They also need to be held accountable.
Information is useful. Motivation has its place. But transformation — that's what really energises me. I love seeing the moment when something shifts: when a person sees their own value differently, when a leadership team starts having the conversations it has been avoiding, or when people stop blaming one another and begin taking real ownership.
Over the years, I've worked across very different industries — from wholesale and retail to events, production, wine and engineering. The businesses may be different, but the underlying challenges are remarkably similar.
It always comes back to people.
Are the right people in the right roles? Do they understand what they're responsible for? Are the different functions working together or protecting their own territory? Can people make decisions, or does everything still land on the founder's desk? Is everyone busy, or is their work genuinely moving the business forward?
My background means I look at these questions from several angles. Finance taught me to follow the numbers and notice where value is being lost. HR gave me a deeper understanding of people, behaviour and motivation. IT showed me how systems can either help people work together or make an already difficult situation worse.
I'm passionate about doing work that creates real change. I'm impatient and intolerant when integrity, trust and accountability are missing. I care about quality, and I hold myself to a high standard. I believe that almost anything is possible — although I'm still learning, often the hard way, that this doesn't mean I can do everything right now.
The Dynamic Shift, where I now work alongside Freda, brings all these parts of my journey together.
It's about looking beneath the obvious problem to understand what's really getting in the way. It's about connecting the numbers, the people and the way the business operates. And it's about creating the clarity, structure and accountability that allow people to do their best work.
Because when people understand where they fit, what they own and how their work contributes, something changes.
The business moves. The team moves. And the leader no longer has to carry everything alone.
Freda Gray
Shift Partner, The Dynamic Shift
Freda's Journey
From early in my career, I knew my purpose was to make potential real. I'm quick to spot potential, in an idea, a person, a half-formed strategy on a whiteboard, and just as quick to feel restless and frustrated when it stays there. An idea that's never implemented is, to me, worth nothing at all.
I started out in communication and marketing, learning how to build genuine engagement with different audiences across various channels and techniques. It's where I first learned that even the best idea only matters if it reaches people in a way they actually understand. Highlights from those years include producing a weekly radio programme for 180 000 employees, being part of the team that developed and launched MTN's first loyalty programme, and developing and delivering a Value Add package for Standard Bank customers.
When innovation emerged as a discipline in its own right in the early 2000s, it felt like a natural next step. It's the same instinct for spotting potential, applied at a bigger scale. Working in innovation strategy and delivery at FNB gave me the chance to learn and practice the skills, which led to collaborating on the launch of Mindstir, a co-owned innovation consultancy. Key clients included the City of Johannesburg, where we developed an employee innovation strategy and implemented innovation training, and SA Breweries, where we built a funnel process to evaluate and deliver more of the “next level” innovative ideas. Working across those projects, I kept seeing the same pattern: organisations are rarely short of ideas. What they're short of is a reliable way to turn ideas into results.
That pattern is what pulled me toward technology. Optimising the latest technology was a natural extension of the innovation work, and it led me to Matchi.biz, a niche global consultancy connecting innovative startup technology firms with corporates who needed their solutions. I loved that role because it sat exactly where I'm most useful — one side has the potential, the other has the capability to scale it, and someone has to build the bridge between them. When Matchi was acquired by KPMG, I spent a number of years in their Emerging Technology unit, still working at that same intersection of innovation, technology and implementation.
I'm impatient with good ideas left sitting in a slide deck, and endlessly curious about what it actually takes to move something from possibility to reality. That thread runs through every chapter of my career, and it's what drew me into the collaboration with Ann in The Dynamic Shift.
Making potential real is paving the road between where a business is and where it wants to be. For the people in it, and for the ideas they haven't acted on yet. That's the work I do. I look forward to helping you do it too.