Dear ELIA peers,

It’s just around the corner, Christmas and the New Year. Europe is getting ready to take time off with family and friends, and many European companies are wrapping up the current business year and preparing for the next. Now is a good time to look back and thank you for what the European Language Industry Association achieved in 2023.

With an economic downturn and increasing living costs, the year has been challenging for many of our members. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, we did not give up the habit of meeting together. Thank you to everyone who came to our events – your presence at ELIA Together in Rome, Focus on Execs in Bled, Networking Days in Krakow, and Focus on PM in Bucharest made these events possible, unique, and memorable.

At Together, we enjoyed Italian cuisine and 20 speakers from all over the world. At Focus on Execs, we refined our goal-setting framework and navigated the emotional roller coaster of M&A. At Networking Days, we were thrilled to see so many of you show off your singing talents (or just the enthusiasm)! And at Focus on PM, we learned how to communicate effectively, boost our bottom line, and build productive, happy teams.

With 29 new members joining in 2023, ELIA today has 216 members. As language service companies, our vision for 2024 requires smart adaptation to the changing technological landscape, particularly in the realm of artificial intelligence. We are racing to stay in the game in an ever-evolving field while trying to safeguard the quality and ethical standards we are so proud of.

I’m very grateful to ELIA’s team and board of directors for their commitment to the association. Their efforts made it possible for us to continue to provide valuable services and resources to our members. We produced and recorded 14 webinars in 2023 for you to learn from and refer back to. We successfully built the ELIA Exchange programme to have 50 registered speakers available for university talks. And we maintained and promoted our pro course in PM training and certification, which has now been taken by 57 industry professionals.

Looking forward to 2024, our Together event will take place in Riga, and Focus on Execs brings us to Malta. Networking Days is planned for Berlin, and Focus on PM for Belgrade. Give yourself the gift of a few professional development days by putting the dates for these events in your diary now.

On behalf of ELIA, I thank you again for your engagement and enthusiasm. I wish you a peaceful holiday season and look forward to learning and growing together in the New Year.

Warmest regards,

Anu