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I am honoured and excited to begin my term serving as your new ASM President. I have been involved with the ASM Executive since 2016, initially serving as a theme leader and then as President Elect over the past year. I am confident this experience has prepared me for the task ahead, and I am grateful to the current Executive Committee and the ASM Council for supporting my election to this important role. I especially thank Dena Lyras for the fantastic leadership she has given. Dena has led our Society as President for the past 4 years and will continue to support and guide me and the ASM over the coming year, a testament to her dedication and commitment to the ASM.

I am excited to see our process of renewal in all of our Vice President (VP) positions taking place. New members on our executive team are Martina Sanderson-Smith (VP Elect Corporate Affairs), Hayley Newton (VP Elect Scientific Affairs) and Sam Manna (VP Elect Communications). Each of these members will serve on the Executive Committee over the next year under the guidance of our current VP members (Anthony Baker, Kate Seib and Rebecca LeBard) and assume their full role after the 2023 AGM. This seems a long way ahead, but as we all know time flies and this induction period will allow a smooth transition with retention of corporate memory.

As we move into a new phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of the ASM continues to grow. In addition to our Annual Scientific Meeting, we support several specialist meetings that are also highly popular. Together, these meetings play an important role for our membership by enhancing networking opportunities, providing opportunities for our ECRs and students to showcase their research, enabling us to recognise outstanding achievements by our members through awards, and fostering engagement with industry. Looking forward, we are committed to finding ways to increase financial support for our members to attend these meetings and to showcase our extensive range of awards. We are also committed to promoting inclusion and diversity, and our 2022 meeting embraced these ideals. I am currently leading the development of a strategic review and plan for our Society and will keep you informed about the positive changes we are making. I also welcome your input and ideas on how we can provide what our members need from the Society, and will ensure there are opportunities for all of you to contribute to the review process.

Our recent Annual Scientific Meeting in Sydney was a great success, with 397 in-person registrations and 108 virtual registrations. We had an outstanding mix of international and national invited speakers, as well as fantastic talks from our ECR and student community. Our student and early career day was a highlight and showcased our Nancy Millis Student Award speakers. We also had fantastic and interactive poster sessions that inspired great discussion and networking. The Local Organising and Scientific Program Committees, chaired by Jai Tree and Martina Sanderson-Smith, respectively, did a fantastic job and deserve our thanks and congratulations for running a stimulating and engaging conference that displayed some of the best cutting-edge research being performed in Australian microbiology. Our next Annual Scientific Meeting will be in Perth next year during 3–6 July 2023. I hope to see you all there!