Inside Leading Wings
Leading Wings brings together strategic foresight, capability development, technology, leadership, enterprise, research, innovation, and collaboration to help people and organizations navigate change and create meaningful impact. Our work is organized around interconnected Focus Domains, Impact Engines, Platforms, and ecosystem initiatives.
One organization. Multiple pathways. One shared purpose.
Our focus
The challenges shaping the future rarely exist in isolation.
Security influences development. Technology changes enterprise. Leadership shapes institutions. Enterprise creates opportunity. And foresight helps us understand how these forces may interact. Leading Wings therefore organizes its work around five interconnected domains.
We build knowledge and capabilities around security, resilience, defence, risk management, and strategic stability.
In practice: Rooted in our founding experience with UAV operations, and in support for military communities through TSDW-P.We explore emerging technologies and their applications while developing the capabilities required to understand, adopt, and use them effectively.
In practice: Introductory drone training in Yola and Makurdi, high-school technology programmes, and LeaDRONExus.We support entrepreneurship, enterprise development, organizational growth, and the creation of sustainable economic and social value.
In practice: Support for ventures such as Olohi Clothings and LeaDRONExus, plus mentoring and skills-development clinics.We develop leaders and leadership capabilities required to make informed decisions, lead people, manage complexity, and respond to change.
In practice: Leadership development sessions, campus professional outreaches and mentoring.We use strategic foresight to explore emerging trends, risks, opportunities, and alternative futures and help people and organizations prepare for them.
In practice: Subject-matter dialogues on emerging technology and policy, including the adoption of unmanned aircraft systems in Nigeria.Our impact engines
Five ways we turn knowledge, ideas, and opportunity into impact.
Leading Wings believes that knowledge becomes valuable when it can be translated into capability and action. Our Impact Engines represent the different ways we work with people, organizations, and communities.
| Engine | What we do | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|
| LEARN | Knowledge & Capability Development. We create learning experiences that build knowledge, skills, competencies, and practical capabilities. | LW Academy · LW Network |
| IDEATE | Research, Development & Innovation. We explore emerging challenges, generate knowledge, develop ideas, and transform possibilities into innovative solutions. | LW Institute · LW Nexus (in development) |
| STRATEGIZE | Strategy & Foresight Advisory. We help leaders and organizations understand complexity, anticipate change, develop strategic direction, and make informed choices. | LW Consulting · LW Institute |
| EXECUTE | Project & Operations Management. We turn strategies and ideas into action through effective planning, coordination, implementation, and delivery. | LW Consulting · LW Academy |
| COLLABORATE | Enterprise & Ecosystem Support. We connect people, organizations, resources, and opportunities to strengthen enterprises, ecosystems, and shared possibilities. | LW Network · LW Nexus (in development) |
Case study · Organized by Leading Wings
In December 2024 we ran a free introductory drone training programme for underserved young people aged 15–25 in Yola, followed by a second session in Makurdi in January 2025. It was our first major initiative, and it shaped everything that followed.
Earlier in 2024, our founder's Mandela Washington Fellowship Focus Project had examined the skills, awareness and policy gaps holding back drone adoption in Nigeria.
Young people with little access to emerging technology got hands-on, introductory UAS training at no cost.
A team of co-founders and volunteers delivered two sessions in two states within two months.
The lesson: drones were only one part of a much larger capability gap. Leading Wings evolved into a Strategic Foresight and Capability Development outfit.
Our platforms
Leading Wings delivers its work through a growing ecosystem of specialized Platforms. Each Platform provides a different pathway through which people and organizations can learn, connect, solve problems, generate knowledge, build enterprises, and explore the future.
Learning & Capability
Our learning platform for professional development, training, skills development, and capability building.
Explore AcademyCommunity & Collaboration
A growing network connecting people, professionals, organizations, and ideas around shared learning, opportunity, and collaboration.
Join the NetworkStrategy & Solutions
Strategic, management, and professional consulting support for organizations navigating challenges, opportunities, and change.
Explore ConsultingResearch & Foresight
Our research and foresight platform — commissioned research, strategic studies, foresight briefings, and knowledge generation, published for the public on Insights.
Explore the InstituteInnovation & Enterprise
A developing platform for enterprise development, innovation, collaboration, convening, and ecosystem building.
Our approach
The challenges we work on are complex. They require more than isolated solutions. Our approach brings together foresight, capability development, collaboration, and action to help people and organizations move from where they are to where they need to be.
Understand what is changing and what may come next.
Develop the people, knowledge, systems, and capabilities required to respond.
Bring together people, ideas, expertise, resources, and opportunities.
Translate insight, strategy, and capability into practical outcomes.
Learn continuously, respond to new realities, and evolve.
We do not simply prepare people for the future. We help build the capabilities required to navigate and shape it.
Our ecosystem
Leading Wings extends beyond its formal Platforms through projects, initiatives, ventures, partnerships, communities, and collaborations.
These activities allow us to test ideas, respond to emerging needs, develop capabilities, create opportunities, and translate our broader mission into practical action.
Focused responses to specific challenges and opportunities.
Programmes designed to create meaningful social, professional, technological, or community impact.
Enterprise and innovation activities that explore new possibilities and create value.
Collaborations that bring together complementary capabilities, resources, and perspectives.
People connected by learning, shared interests, professional development, and a commitment to creating impact.
Featured initiatives
Our initiatives provide practical ways for Leading Wings to apply its knowledge, capabilities, and networks to real-world challenges.
Strategic Dialogue for a Changing World.
A convening platform bringing together leaders, practitioners, experts, and emerging voices to explore critical issues shaping our future.
Building Capability for Unmanned Systems.
An emerging technology initiative focused on drone operations, training, professional development, and the wider UAS ecosystem.
Supporting Military Communities.
A social-impact initiative focused on supporting soldiers' families and creating opportunities for vulnerable members of military communities.
Creating Value From What Others Discard.
A social enterprise combining clothing production, circular textile solutions, and social impact.
Supporting Young People to Thrive.
An initiative focused on educational support, leadership development, sports, and opportunities for young people from underserved communities.
Featured initiatives are ecosystem activities connected to Leading Wings. They are not all formal Leading Wings Platforms.
Support or partner on an initiativeOur network
The challenges shaping our future cannot be solved by one organization alone. Leading Wings works with individuals, institutions, enterprises, communities, experts, and organizations whose knowledge, resources, and perspectives strengthen what we can achieve together.
Besides individual members, the organizations below form part of the Leading Wings Network.
Through partnership, we expand access to
Different capabilities. Shared possibilities. Greater impact.
Supporting soldiers' families and vulnerable members of military communities.
Educational support, leadership and sports development for young people from underserved communities.
The people behind the work
Behind every programme, platform, initiative, and partnership is a community of people who contribute knowledge, experience, energy, and perspective.
From our leadership and advisory community to project teams, associates, fellows, volunteers, and collaborators, Leading Wings is being built by people who believe that capability can change what is possible.
Meet the Leading Wings CommunityThe horizon
Leading Wings is still growing. Our ambition is to build an interconnected institution where learning, research, foresight, advisory, innovation, enterprise, and collaboration reinforce one another. We are building the systems, platforms, partnerships, and capabilities required to move from individual initiatives to a wider ecosystem of sustained impact.
Africa's Premier Capability Development Institution
The horizon is bigger than today.
Your place
Whether you want to learn, contribute, collaborate, build, partner, or explore what comes next, there is a pathway into the Leading Wings ecosystem.
