Letter from the CEO

As I’m sure you’re aware, 2023 marks 25 years of EuRA. In that time it has been my privilege and pleasure to have led an organisation whose members reflect the very best of professionalism around the world.

EuRA is its members. It’s not me or Dom and our team, the Executive Group or our Strategic Consultants, it is the members who make the organisation what it is. It is our job as the team and Executive Group to do the very best we can to ensure EuRA meets the needs of its members and continues to provide excellence, value and community to every stake holder.

To this end, I am fully aware that the basic fact of time moving ever forward means we need to plan for a future where EuRA thrives under a change of leadership and at an Executive Group meeting in 2019, I set out the need to fully review every aspect of EuRA’s functioning. I’m not going anywhere yet and neither is Dom, but we will retire of course and so now, post pandemic when we can meet with the Executive Group where we haven’t been able to for the past two years, that process is underway. I would like to thank them for their enthusiasm and dedication to this task. It has meant a far greater commitment by them than ever before as here at EuRA we do a lot! So the examination process of the review is wide ranging and hard work.

Under the broad headings of education, innovation, sustainability, best practice, Executive Group responsibilities, membership, events and business continuity, we will be diving into what we do, how we do it and how it will be done in the future. Of course there will not be change for changes sake, but over 25 years our industry has evolved and changed and EuRA has and will continue to do the same.

I am delighted to welcome the potential new members of the Executive Group and thank you all for your commitment to helping EuRA to achieve its aims. You can read the bios of each of the candidates in this issue and we will run a live briefing to introduce the successful new members of the Executive Group. It’s a mark of how much EuRA has gained in stature and reputation over the past 25 years that so many qualified and dedicated candidates have come forward. Being part of the Executive Group is a big commitment both in time and energy so thank you all. I look forward to welcoming the successful candidates to the stage in Dublin and to their first meeting in May.

Speaking of events, I would like to personally thank every delegate who joined us in Costa Rica. There was an amazing feeling at that event and being in a smaller group really allowed for us to all get to know each other. Many members in the region thanked me at the time and after for bringing a EuRA event to LATAM and we were delighted to be able to do so. Our venue in Costa Rica was truly amazing, the kind of hotel we wish we could run every event in! An amazing staff team who could not have been kinder. Huge thanks to all our speakers who made the content so relevant. Again being in that smaller group made for some terrific discussions around our topics based on the theme “Stronger Together; The Power of Collaboration”. We will be holding variations on two of the sessions in Dublin as they were so insightful and relevant they need a larger audience.

Thanks too to everyone who submitted a speaker request form for Dublin. We had just under 200 submissions for just 24 spots so there will some disappointed people out there, but please submit again for 2024. We have a great programme for Dublin and some extra celebrating to be done to mark EuRA’s Silver Anniversary. The conference is very nearly sold out with extremely limited places now left. Briony predicts we will need to open the Waitlist before Christmas which has never happened before. I am frequently asked why we don’t just make the conference bigger and I always answer that this is what delegates have told us year after year - keep it at numbers which make it accessible.

So if the Universe smiles on us all, we will be in Dublin to celebrate 25 years of the brilliant members of EuRA being together as a family.