Dear Colleagues,

It is a great honor to be speaking to you for the first time as your elected President. I feel proud and excited to continue this journey together with you.

Leadership can be described the ability to use the competencies of the team to reach the goals that have been set together. Leadership needs to be both strategic and operational and as we have discussed during our meeting, we have challenges ahead. But it is us, together, that will need to find the path and way forward for a prosperous and energetic organization. This meeting has provided me and the incoming board of directors with your valuable input on how we can work towards this as a team.

A major focus during the coming years will need to be securing member value and member participation, where increased costs affect both IFBLS and member associations. I am hopeful we can work this out and also still focus on the core values, such as being the voice of BLS worldwide, promoting professional development and advancement as well as continuing our important collaboration with WHO and enhancing the Britta Karlsson legacy.

But a leader is nothing without her team. As president-elect I worked with a somewhat new team. Marie, Alan and I were joined by 5 new team-members of whom Ki-Jong, Davis and Godswill are leaving the team. Thank you all for your contributions during this time. It’s been my absolute pleasure to serve with you on the board.

An extra thank you to Marie and Alan, for teaching me about both the day-to-day business and about leadership, letting me grow with increased responsibility and mandate. I also want to give an extra, heartful thank you to Janie Hames, our executive administrator. Without you, many of us would be truly lost.

In this election, we were fortunate to have new and old friends putting their names forward, wanting to take on leadership roles, which is crucial for any organization.

Hassan, Maria, Bitten, Giseon, Robyn and Alan, I look forward working with you in the coming years. You each will bring something unique and special to our group and I look forward to working with you as a team.

Mirjana, I am happy you put your name forward, and I hope to work with you in other settings in the future.

This year would normally have been a congress year. Despite this fact, a GAD meeting needs to be held and if not in the congress county, in Canada. Planning this meeting I would like to thank the Canadian Society for medical Laboratory Science (CSMLS), with Chief Executive officer Christine Nielsen. Thank you for helping us plan this meeting, advising us on where to go and how to do.

Normally, a congress provides multiple opportunities to learn, meet and discuss. This year, we celebrate our 70^th anniversary and we really wanted to offer all of you that are coming, something extra. So tomorrow we look forward to welcoming you to our symposium day, followed by an anniversary dinner. I would like to thank the previous board of directors for their help in putting the program together, and in particular, president elect Hassan Aziz.

I trust the day will provide us with reflection on the changes our profession has been part of during the last 70 years and ideas on where we can and need to be in the future. As your elected president, I will do my very best to work with you to continue our journey together for biomedical laboratory scientists worldwide.

I would like to end with a quote from my PhD thesis

In life, it is not where you go, it’s who you travel with.

I feel thankful to travel with you all into the future of IFBLS

Thank you

Gabriella Lillsunde Larsson

IFBLS President 2024 - 2026