Welcome to the 8th issue of i-MBA SCOPE! As realistically expected in the previous newsletter published in November 2020 and discussing challenges of the COVID-19 crisis, we are still, unfortunately, experiencing the waives of the pandemic. The major difference being of course the access to and distribution so far of close to 3.5 billion vaccine doses across the globe. However, risks and challenges in individual as well as professional lives remain severe and discontinuous. In the present issue of our newsletter, we continue to explore the impacts of the pandemic and the outlooks for a new reality beyond its most violent outbreak, which we all hope is behind us.

The fist article, by Professor Nikos Vettas, General Director of the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research, IOBE, exposes the many actions and challenges that have and will intervene in the economy. Professor Vettas highlights the unprecedented monetary and fiscal policy responses to the crisis, the outlooks for a realistic but bumpy recovery and the structural transformations, including higher fiscal coordination in the EU, that lie ahead.

In the second article, Maria Patakiouti, Director, Human Resources, Ernst & Young Business Advisory Services delves into the new Work Deal stemming from the pandemic. Having taught us to expect the unexpected and forced us to adapt to new conditions at unprecedented pace, she discusses new requirements on hybrid leadership and people management. These comprise a focus on visibility-based and empathy-based approaches, and cognitive flexibility, i.e., switching ones thinking as an adaptation to stimuli in unpredictable and complex contexts.

In the Career and Alumni Corner, Vasilis Tziokas, Global Industry GTM Lead, Data & AI, Microsoft, Seattle, and i-MBA class of 2015 Alumnus, looks forward, backward and inward to find solutions and inspirations for how to navigate in the new reality taking shape. Combining thinking from systems theory, anthropology and innovation, he delivers a though-provoking exposé on the challenges ahead.

The newsletter also contains program and alumni news, as well as suggested links related to business challenges driven by the pandemic.