It took just over a decade but the “turn” did happen and not just in the markets. COVID-19 reminds us of a long series of global shocks that suddenly make the world seem like a very small place, a place where something as microscopic as a virus unites almost every country in the same struggle. We are reminded of the Great Financial Crisis and before that 9/11. It all makes the oil price shock of 1979 and the global economic dislocations that caused seem almost quaint.

Something like COVID-19 makes us think first of the health and welfare of the people closest to us. Family to be sure, but also colleagues, clients, customers, and business partners.

We will each and every one of us experience this through the prisms of our own sense of risk to our health and safety, and through the disruptions that can happen to families, friends, colleagues, and communities, as they will undoubtedly for many of us. We also feel this urgent sense that we need to be prepared. But the closer we get to someone being sick, we can only hope that our highest selves will always prevail and we will help others as well.

I don’t think this is the time to cast blame. This is not an indictment of globalization. It is not a failure of institutional or government preparedness. Clearly, we could always be better prepared for every untoward event. Clearly, we wish government would solve this. In the meantime, we need to be vigilant and take precautions, we prepare and we plan, and we help others when and if we can.

All the best,

Montieth M. Illingworth

CEO & Global Managing Partner