Ensuring people remain ‘employable’ throughout business cycles and across countries.
Our World is changing very fast. Geographic, cultural, language and gender barriers are coming down and this has made the employment market relatively global. Therefore, the way young people approach their decision on how to best prepare and what to study is very different today than it was even ten years ago, let alone when their parents were the ones to make such decisions.
Keeping up with constant change and navigating this open sea of opportunities, requires the possession of all sorts of traits and skills. Youngsters should exercise self-reflection, self-assessment and try to define their goals. It helps if they clearly and in detail write them down. They need to reflect on what they want to do with their life, assess the things they are good at and the things they are not so good at, even if this contradicts social or family norms. Forcing children into a specific professional direction will most probably not have long term success anyway.
Something we should not neglect is that, in today’s world, we are constantly tested on our ability to continuously learn. There are some youngsters that have clarity on what they like and what they want to pursue in their life. But there are others that don’t or change their mind halfway. It is therefore important for them to know how to learn new things and retrain or re-educate themselves. Given that today information is readily available, the value of learning a certain set of information has a diminishing impact. Thus, again, learning ability, learning new subjects and skills is integral.
Another key characteristic that I believe is important is the ability to “connect the dots”, the ability to understand the information presented in front them and make sense of what they mean. This is an ability that is cultivated over time through broader knowledge (History, Geography, Science etc.), general observation and experiences, that come through travelling etc, and social interactions. So not all knowledge comes out of a phone screen!
Another area people sometimes fail to pay attention to is interpersonal skills. As we progress through technology people become more focused on themselves, thus losing the interpersonal aspect. Knowing how to interact with people and getting to a positive result will be key in the future.
In this journey of self and professional discovery, family support is instrumental. Mental health is often underestimated and at the crucial age of early adulthood, it can have some devastating effects. Thankfully for us Greeks family plays an important role and is, in most of the cases, a pillar of both mental and financial support. While the ‘mental’ part is more or less given, the ‘financial’ aspect is a more complicated and diverse one. Undoubtedly, education is crucial and therefore parents should support where needed. At the same time they need to be careful not to offer excessive financial support and therefore kill the sense of value and investment that they are making for their children.
The above-mentioned characteristics are very important to ensure people remain ‘employable’ throughout business cycles and across countries. Even though the global job market is connected, it is a fact that different countries go through different cycles. For example, the Greek job market is starting from a low point so for the next 3 to 4 years I expect the job market to perform well. At a Pan-European level, the market is very mature and, despite being at a good level overall, opportunities are less. And of course, with Brexit, it is unclear how easy it will be for a Greek to go work in the UK, a very common choice amongst the Greeks for living and working abroad.
Therefore, to remain ‘relevant’ one has to stay ‘connected’ with the current job market cycle, the market developments and opportunities that are around them, keep evolving their skills and constantly learn new skills. In a competitive market, all additional advantages can make a difference, whether another language or a professional certification. Realistically speaking, it is difficult to think of a successful university graduate today who does not possess at least 2 or 3 languages. What is also very important is experiences and a proper first job. Even if a young graduate were to join a family business or get a job close to where their family is, it would be beneficial to start their career with a large structured organization, preferably abroad. Because the first couple of years of a job, are another university themselves.
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Marios Kalochoritis
Business Consulting, Banking & Finance, Entrepreneurship – International
Marios is the Founder and Managing Partner of Loggerhead Partners. He is a financial executive with an international career spanning over 20+ years across investment banking, hedge fund management, private equity, wealth management, corporate and structured finance and real estate investments.
Marios is the Senior Advisor to the Group CEO of the Bank of Cyprus; a role he assumed in late 2017 as he stepped down from the Board of Directors after 4 years to take a more active role at the Bank through Loggerhead Partners. Loggerhead Partners is now responsible for the Bank of Cyprus Group’s equity participations that arose through the restructuring process. In this capacity, Marios chairs or participates in the Management of these investments.
Prior to his time at the Bank of Cyprus, Marios co-founded Auvest, a Global Macro Hedge Fund, where he headed the finance, operations and risk management functions between 2008-2013. He set up and managed the firm’s main operations office in Nicosia and was a member of the investment committee.
Marios is a former Senior Vice President of Clariden Leu Bank (part of Credit Suisse Group) based in Zurich and Head of Business Development for Eastern and Central Europe and Turkey. He led a team of Relationship Managers covering these markets and worked with larger clients in the structuring and management of their wealth. Prior to this he was Chief Financial Officer of Amana Group, a major industrial contracting company based out of Dubai. He was instrumental in setting up the Corporate Office structure and designing the Finance and Accounting functions across the Branch network.
Marios was also a co-founder and Vice President of Capital Risk Group LLC, New York. He started his career as an Analyst and later an Associate at Enron, based out of Houston, Texas and worked for the in-house principal investment and corporate finance group. He interned at McKinsey & Co in Athens and J.P. Morgan Chase M&A in New York.
He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School (2001), and a B.Sc. in Finance from Louisiana State University (1997).
