A trusted, multi-year partnership across a diverse group

Ascendis Health is a JSE-listed health and wellness investment holding group headquartered in Sandton, Johannesburg, operating across pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and consumer health brands. Its portfolio spans a number of independently run operating companies, from surgical and orthopaedic equipment distribution to scientific and speciality ingredient supply.

Ascendis has partnered with Strove for several years to support wellbeing across this genuinely varied workforce - from lab-based teams to field and warehouse staff - with HR centralised under one team, even though each operating company runs on its own separate portal.

Over that time, Strove has become the consistent thread tying wellbeing together across the group, rather than each operating company running its own fragmented initiative.

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The challenge

Ascendis needed a way to support wellbeing consistently across six operating companies, each with its own systems, structure, and pace of change, while keeping oversight simple for one centralised HR team.

• Coordinating engagement across six operating companies, each running its own separate organisation
• Keeping membership accurate and current as employees move between companies or leave the group
• Sustaining participation across such a varied workforce

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Why Strove

Strove gives Ascendis' centralised HR team one consistent way to manage wellbeing across six separate portals, rather than needing a different approach for every operating company.

With Strove, Ascendis has been able to:

• Run structured, ongoing wellbeing campaigns of company-wide movement and nutrition challenges
• Keep membership accurate across the group as employees onboard, transfer, or offboard
• Gain population-level health visibility through Health Mirror
• Recognise and spotlight top performers to build momentum organically across teams

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The rollout

Each year, Strove runs wellbeing engagement campaigns across the Ascendis group, anchored around a run of company-wide challenges designed to build lasting habits.

Through Strove, Ascendis employees can:

• Track steps, movement, and daily activity automatically
• Join company-wide challenges and compete on leaderboards with colleagues
• Log meals as part of themed nutrition challenges
• Complete a 30-second Health Mirror face scan to check resting heart rate, blood pressure estimation, and respiratory rate
• Earn points and recognition for consistency, not just intensity

This year's Q1 campaign carried that momentum forward, running four movement challenges and a dedicated meal-logging challenge back to back, with winners and standout performers spotlighted to the group after every round. Health Mirror went live for all members in June 2026, giving Ascendis its first population-level view of health trends across the group.

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The impact

Across the group, 533 members are registered on Strove, with 304 members activated — a 57% activation rate across a genuinely dispersed, multi-company workforce.

This has translated into meaningful daily behaviour:

• Over 117.6 million steps logged by members across the group
• ~387,000 steps logged per activated member on average

Engagement has remained strong across challenges:

• 127 unique members took part in Strove challenges - around 42% of all activated members
• 1,958 challenge entries logged across the group's four Q1 movement challenges and meal-logging challenge

Surgical Innovations and ACB / AMS led the group on challenge participation and total members activated, while Cardaxes, Ortho-Xact and The Scientific Group each built a consistent core of daily steppers logging activity right through to today.

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Employees who previously didn't engage in traditional wellness programmes are now building steady, sustainable habits:

"I'm really enjoying being part of the Strove Q1 All-Rounder Challenge. For me, this journey isn't only about the points or the leaderboard. It's about showing up consistently and doing something small every day to maintain balance in my life. Wellness doesn't have to be extreme to be effective."

— Sanneli Kruger, Marketing Manager, Ascendis Consumer Brands

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At the same time, highly active employees are using the platform to stay accountable and push their performance:

"Consistency beats motivation. Showing up every day, even when it's tough, is what drives real progress."

— Frik du Toit, Ascendis Health

From a leadership perspective, Ascendis HR continues to value the group-wide visibility Strove provides.

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What comes next

With ongoing campaigns, Strove and Ascendis are focused on growing activation further, deepening nutrition and mental wellbeing engagement, and extending the consistent, group-wide wellbeing experience to every part of the Ascendis portfolio.

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