A combined Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! With the end of the formal work year I've been hit by a tremendous wave of fatigue unlike anything I have known before. The past three weeks were the intense finale of a very intense year, and were probably the coup de grace as far as my system goes.
This year my partners and I have taken some of the most courageous decisions ever, including a total restructuring of one startup and the launch of two new concepts which I'll be glad to introduce in January.
A very special thanks to my colleagues and coworkers at Navigator, our partner network and the startups and entrepreneurs we are supporting, and my apologies for all the delays.
I was also honoured and glad to see common sense and economic rationale prevail in two of my clients this year: one is a multilateral agency dedicated to innovation; another was a bilateral investment bank from one of the largest EU economies. We've been struggling with due diligence projects and with setting up a new financial impact reporting system, and it's been an adventure and a learning experience, and a huge improvement over the same types of projects done 10 years ago or 20 years ago.
The quality and motivation of people and systems has definitely improved. It can be very difficult to understand this from the outside, but I am proud of the people I have worked with and for in 2023-2024.
A special thanks to all our clients and friends in Cyprus and Greece. In 2024, I lost count of the trips made outside these two countries, but each time I return I reflect on how blessed we are ... and of course, how much better things could be. It is always good to be home.
This year was also a year of affirmation of the bonds of trust and long-standing friendship, and I'm glad to say that in a world going to sh@t, there are still people around whose word is their bond and whose handshake is a binding contract. You know who you are: my profound thanks.
I look back at a years' worth of unreturned emails and texts, and missed opportunities to meet, and missed birthdays, and missed Teams calls, and surly communications from my side, and I hope these can be forgiven. As I get older, time seems to accelerate, and most of the time I'm struggling to catch up.
September 2025 will mark the 30th anniversary of the founding of Navigator Consulting Group in Athens, Greece. Back then, faxes were the rage and the sexy mobile phones weighed over a kilo. Netscape Navigator, Mosaic and Internet Explorer had all just launched, and the great adventure called the Web 1.0 boom began. When OTE finally introduced internet access, we would tap a button and the modem would start whistling as it struggled with 4800 and later 9600 bps speeds.
Fast forward to the end of 2024, and the pace of change becomes easier to recognise. China joined the GATT and then the WTO in the late 1990s, changing everything. Google and then the Web 2.0 platforms all launched and scaled up largely after the first dot.com crash. The former CIS transformed rapidly, and I'm proud to say that my work contributed partly to this--I believe the better part. Further afield, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and other countries showed the world what a vision and a consistent investment strategy based on technology, investment promotion and global reach can do.
We are now in an age where by 2035 and 2040 our economy and society will have transformed irreversibly. The only question is are we heading to a Star Trek future utopia or a Blade Runner future dystopia. A quick glance at the headlines almost always seems to indicate the latter, although this may be my idealism manifesting itself.
I wish everyone a fantastic holiday season and an amazing 2025. Good health, safety and success. Thank you for everything.
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