A Letter from Philip Ammerman
I would like to thank our clients, colleagues and staff, and everyone else who contributed so much to making 2022 an extraordinary year.
Initially billed as a year of recovery after COVID, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has caused catastrophic effects in Ukraine and across the world. I regret the thousands of dead and wounded in Ukraine, as well as the millions of innocent Ukrainians who have become domestic and international refugees in scenes unwitnessed at this scale in Europe since the Second World War.
The Russian invasion has caused widespread problems in energy and food price inflation which builds on the problems already seen in 2020 and 2021 as a result of COVID and global supply chains. While global energy prices have recently receded, European governments have committed € 500 billion to fighting the effect of higher energy and inflation in the past 12 months alone, and this economic damage will burden government debt for years in the future.
In 2022, the long-awaited launch of central bank quantitative tightening in the United States and Europe began. The Federal Reserve has increased US interest rates 7 times in 2022, to a current target rate of 4.25 - 4.50%. The European Central Bank has started the process of raising Euro rates. Both the Fed and the ECB are committed to winding down the asset investment programmes they have been following.
The rise in interest rates in the United States has in turn has touched off a stock market crash that will almost certainly transmit into mortgages and property values as well as government debt and lower categories of investment-grade corporate debt. Economic turbulence, in other words, is far from over and will last well into 2023.
Within Navigator Consulting, we have been preoccupied with re-building our consulting practise after the COVID years as well as investing in and supporting new startups. This year we hope to announce the launch of at least 2 new ventures, as well as progress in existing initiatives.
In 2022, we were honoured to have been chosen by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology to support the planning and launch of the European Deep Tech Talent Initiative, a commitment to train 1,000,000 talents in Deep Tech between 2023 and 2025. Deep Tech advances are continuing at an extremely rapid pace, and as we note in our Digital Utopia / Digital Dystopia thesis, technology is changing the very definition of humanity.
In 2022, we were also honoured to implement four blended training programmes for the Cyprus Chamber of Commerce & Industry:
Digital Transformation and Project Management Methods (October 2022)
Omnichannel One-to-One Marketing (March 2022)
Digital Transformation and Project Management Methods (January 2022)
with a total of 59 companies participating, representing a cross-section of the Cyprus economy. We are grateful to everyone who attended, and look forward to continuing in 2023.
As part of our contributions to the technology ecosystem in Cyprus, we were proud to support several initiatives this year:
We would like to thank the organisers of these events for the opportunity to present our views.
In late 2022, I was chosen as a coach and mentor for the EIT’s Women Entrepreneurs Supernova call. This project supported a Dutch early-stage start-up in the field of AI, IoT and workplace ergonomics and provided a fascinating look at state-of-the-art in that segment.
In 2023, we have an ambitious conference and event participation schedule: You can view our 2023 Master Schedule here.
We will also be holding several training programmes for the Cyprus Chamber of Commerce & Industry. Our first is entitled Managing Digital Loyalty Programmes in Cyprus and will be held at the Hilton Hotel in Nicosia on 22-23 March 2023.
If we can be of any assistance to you in 2023, please do not hesitate to contact us. We will be pleased to catch up and see if we can be of help.
Our best wishes for 2023!
Philip Ammerman