Thoughts on a new economy

Hello,

We took a good break to recharge for 2022 and I hope you are healthy and your start to the year has been gentle.

Already in the first weeks of the year, I see tremendous action. It feels like we are all eager to emerge from the pandemic and push forward the big shifts that started in the last two years in the way we produce, source, consume and tackle the climate emergency, inequality, and the ways in which we innovate and engage with our employees and customers. We have no time to lose.

I spoke to many of you in the final weeks of 2021 and as we are yet again unable to come together in Davos, Berlin, HK or NYC, I wanted to share some of the priorities you mentioned with the broader community:

• Upskilling employees remains a priority as hiring the right talent becomes harder with changing job realities.
• Many business transformation efforts are coming to fruition this year and the keywords are: implementation, implementation, implementation now.
• Reducing our carbon footprint opens new business opportunities, and yet, it's still not easy to leverage these opportunities with the urgency we need.
• There is so much exciting entrepreneurial activity around some of the bigger challenges like food, cities, supply chains that we can harness.
• The ecosystem approach to innovation is here to stay. It is working and the appetite for new partnerships is growing.

At the start of the year Count Us In teamed up with Netflix and it is amazing to witness the power of compelling storytelling for global climate action. ‘Don’t Look Up’ is now the second biggest Netflix film of all time and #DontLookUp is creating traction and inviting us to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem.

And finally, I am so pleased to see how the topics that we have been pushing forward for years are represented in Blackrock’s yearly CEO letter that came out this week. Now that we’re all on the same page, it’s time for action.

Enough for now. I look forward to what we will DO together this year.

Have a continued great start - and stay tuned for next month: I have some very exciting news that I can’t wait to share with you!

Florian