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Each time I sit down to write Deazy’s annual Christmas letter, I find myself reflecting on a year which has brought new national or international crises and challenges to overcome - the Collins dictionary chose ‘permacrisis’ as their word of this year because of the dizzying sense of us lurching from one unprecedented event to another. At the same time, I am humbled as I think about how much I enjoy leading and overcoming each challenge with Team Deazy.
2022 started off with a bang as we had recently closed a £5 million, Series A, funding round. We started the year energised, excited and ready for new wins! This exciting news was, however, swiftly followed by the awful news that Russia had invaded Ukraine.
Looking back, I am incredibly proud of the way the Deazy team, clients and delivery partners worked together to play a small part in supporting our friends in Ukraine during such a devastating and difficult time.
The Deazy team supported our delivery partners in Ukraine to develop business continuity plans and showed genuine care to support them as companies and people. I would also like to thank our clients who showed flexibility and care to continue working with our Ukrainian delivery partners, even when it had a short-term impact on their teams and businesses. Finally, I would like to thank our delivery partners who went above and beyond to support Ukrainian teams who were relocating to Poland, Romania and Georgia.
Whilst it is no longer covered as extensively in the news, the war is very much still going on so I would love us to keep exploring how we can continue to support Ukraine, and our delivery partners in particular. Our thoughts and prayers are especially with them now as they face Christmas whilst at war.
The importance of living out our cultural values by making decisions which hold all of them in balance has been especially important this year. We’ve sought audacious adventure in exploring new opportunities, but our value of listening through collective genius has sharpened our focus as we move into 2023. We have been able to further invest in Team Deazy by appointing Ben Morris as our Head of People and Culture, with a focus on further cultivating our culture, as well as improving performance and wellbeing.
It has in many ways been a year of learning and consolidation, in line with our ‘follow your wisdom’ value, as we continue to scale in 2023 and beyond. We never stop seeking audacious adventure and the last two quarters of this year have included some milestone moments for us, for which I’d like to thank the team.
We released our first industry report as a company, the ‘State of the Dev Ecosystem’; an eBook to help CTOs and CPOs across the UK and Europe with their 2023 planning.
Finally, the recognition from Deloitte in November of being the 13th fastest growing UK tech company over the last 4 years brought a moment to celebrate the peaks we’ve scaled, and with humility and gratitude, dare to plan an increasingly audacious journey into 2023 with the partners we’ve carefully built along the way.
As Christmas approaches, we will be taking time to pause and reflect, to rest and spend time with friends and family, and we hope you are able to as well. As a turbulent 2022 draws to a close I recall the way our ecosystem worked together to support our brothers and sisters in Ukraine, and it is important we continue to work together in this way. It reminds me of the power of servant leadership, which for me personally, is perfectly demonstrated at Christmas in Jesus, who, I believe, gave up his rights to suffer for others.
Moving to 2023, I am full of excitement as we continue to work with you all to breakdown barriers and challenges associated with development and make it…Deazy.
I want to personally wish you a restful, peaceful and joyful Christmas and a great start to 2023! I look forward to working with you next year.
