Objectives

The primary objective of this tender is to appoint a service provider capable of supporting the IDC in executing a comprehensive culture transformation and renewal project. The goal is to reset and embed a sustainable, ethical, and high-performing organizational culture, addressing deep-rooted behavioral, leadership, and systemic challenges identified through recent culture and ethics surveys. The service provider must facilitate a fundamental culture reset, starting with leadership and cascading throughout the organization, to improve trust, accountability, ethical conduct, and organizational effectiveness.

Scope

The scope of work includes:

• Developing and implementing a governance and action plan integrating culture, ethics, leadership, and human capital.
• Designing and executing leadership and organizational system interventions, including leadership behaviour shifts, performance frameworks, and decision-making protocols.
• Redesigning organizational systems such as policies, decision rights, and processes to dismantle bureaucracy and misaligned incentives.
• Operationalizing mechanisms for psychological safety, speak-up protocols, and ethical conduct reinforcement.
• Embedding the IDC’s leadership manifesto and social compact into policies and practices.
• Implementing recognition, reinforcement, and measurement systems to track progress and impact.
• Transferring skills and ownership to IDC leadership for sustainability.
• Providing a 24-month sustainment plan post-project completion.

The project is expected to commence immediately upon award and will span approximately two years.

Technical Requirements

The service provider must demonstrate:

• Relevant experience in organizational transformation/renewal projects, with at least three references from the past five years, including one in the financial sector.
• Thorough understanding of deep culture and ethics work in complex institutions, with evidence of prior successful interventions at leadership levels.
• Qualified personnel with relevant skills and experience, including expertise in organizational development, change management, psychology, sociology, or related disciplines (minimum NQF-8 qualifications).
• Ability to deliver a structured, accelerated, and leadership-led culture reset, with practical mechanisms for behaviour change, accountability, and impact measurement.
• Capability to engage at senior leadership levels, challenge entrenched norms, and embed sustainable cultural shifts without reliance on new diagnostics or surveys.
• Proven approach to embedding ethics, psychological safety, and speak-up mechanisms aligned with IDC frameworks.
• Capacity to redesign organizational systems, decision rights, and policies to support cultural change.

Skills Requirements

The bidder’s team must possess:

• Extensive experience in organizational culture and ethics transformation, particularly within complex, large institutions.
• Strong leadership and change management skills, with the ability to operate at executive levels and influence behavioural shifts.
• Expertise in designing and implementing leadership development, accountability frameworks, and systemic reforms.
• Proficiency in facilitating cultural reset initiatives that challenge existing norms and address systemic risks such as fear, victimization, and low trust.
• Skills in stakeholder engagement, coaching, and capacity building to ensure transfer of ownership and sustainability.
• Ability to develop practical, measurable, and sustainable interventions that embed a high-trust, ethical organizational culture.