Archives

Mr. Alexandros Vassilikos

Alexandros Vassilikos was born in Athens in 1976 to a Greek father, a self-made hotelier-business man, and a French mother. He was raised in Athens and attended the French-Hellenic school with a very diverse group of peers. He holds a Masters’ degree in Economics and Finance, with studies in Nantes, France and London, U.K.

Alexandros officially enters the family business in 1998 as a second generation hotelier. At the age of 24, he is appointed COO of AIROTEL Group and a year later, after the sudden loss of his father he becomes CEO of AIROTEL Group.

With the Athens 2004 Olympic Games in view, he drives the group into a modernization period by renovating its assets in Athens.

Despite the economic crisis, he expands the chain by doubling the company’s assets in Patra and adding a long term lease in Kavala. Also, AIROTEL expands in Crete by buying, refurbishing and selling traditional houses.

Seeing the potential for growth in Greek summer residences, under Alexandros’ chairmanship, AIROTEL purchases more than 20 houses across picturesque mountain villages of south-eastern Crete. These houses are then refurbished and sold.

In 2007 Webotel SA is founded, a company dedicated to the online representation of hotels in Greece.

In parallel to his professional obligations, he was elected President of the Athens – Attica Hotels Association in 2012. He was also Member of the Executive Council and Vice-President of the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels and Superintendent of Public Relations of the Panhellenic Federation of Hoteliers. He was also a Member of the Board of the Association of Greek Tourist Enterprises (SETE) from 2011 to May 2017.

In January 2018 he resigns all former positions after being elected President of the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels, the youngest person ever to hold this position since the creation of the institution in 1935.

In October 2018 he is elected as a member of the Executive Committee of HOTREC, the umbrella Association of Hotels, Restaurants, Pubs and Cafes and similar establishments in Europe.

Finally, being a French national, Alexandre was also appointed economic adviser to the French Embassy in Athens in 2008, a position he actively holds to this day.

Ms. Christina F. Legaki

She was born in Athens in 1960 and she has 4 daughters. She graduated from Arsakeio Psychikon high school and she holds a Bachelors degree in Business Administration from Athens University of Economics. She continued with a masters degree (MBA), in USA, from Virginia Darden School of Business.

She has a long professional journey in the area of Business Administration with senior responsibility positions in multinational corporations. Her expertise, lies on management of companies that promote innovation, on all stages of agricultural economy. She is the Country Leader for CORTEVA AGRISCIENCE HELLAS, a leading company in the field of agriculture which came into life out of the mingle of expertise and know how of companies such as DuPont Crop Protection, Pioneer and Dow Chemicals. She is also Business Leader for Israel & Cyprus at CORTEVA AGRISCIENCE and President of the board and CEO of DuPont Hellas S.A.

Her prior management position was President of the board and CEO of PIONEER HI-BRED HELLAS S.A., a multinational seed production and commercial company. Christina Legaki is also shareholder in HELLAFARM S.A., GAIA WINEMAKING S.A., THODORIS PANAS – DANCING SCHOOL OF ATHENS.

She speaks fluently English and French.

Mr. Haris Linardakis

Haris Linardakis is the IBM Cloud leader, Greece and Cyprus. Within his role, he is helping enterprises of all sizes to assess cloud readiness, develop cloud adoption strategies and power their digital transformation.

Throughout his career in IBM, he held business development positions in global technology services and enterprise business unit. As a professional, he is committed to deliver business value through technological advancement and innovative thinking. His main interests include cloud platforms and services, business analytics, internet of things, cognitive applications and blockchain.

Haris’ academic background includes electrical and computer engineering degree and a PhD degree in telecommunications, both from the National Technical University of Athens.

Mr. Konstantinos Skrekas

Konstantinos Skrekas hails from Megarhi, Trikala. He is married to Eirini Karagouni and father of two daughters, Alexandra and Sophia. He holds a Diploma in Civil Engineering from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Civil Engineering Department, Faculty of  Technology),  and  an  MSc  in  Construction Management from the University of Birmingham, UK.

After completing his studies, he worked in the FMCG sector (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) in managerial positions. Co-founder of a company operating in the FMCG sector and CEO for 15 years.

In the parliamentary elections of 6 May 2012 he was elected Member of the Greek Parliament (MP) for the Constituency of Trikala with the New Democracy Party. He was re-elected on 17th June of the same year. On 25th of January 2015 he was elected Member of the Greek Parliament (MP), receiving the largest number of electoral votes among candidates from all political parties. He was re-elected in the elections on 20th September of the same year. In the general elections on 7th July 2019 he was elected first in votes Member of the Greek Parliament for the Constituency of Trikala.

During his incumbency in the Hellenic Parliament he has been member of the Standing Committee on Economic Affairs, the Standing Committee on Production and Trade, the Special Permanent Committee on Research and Technology and the Special Permanent Committee on Environmental Protection. He was also the responsible MP for the Environment and Energy Sector for the New Democracy Party.

He was appointed Minister of Development and Competitiveness from October 2014 until February 2015. On 9th July 2019 he was appointed Deputy Minister of Rural Development and Food, responsible for the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP). In 2021 he has been appointed Minister of Energy & Environment.

He speaks English and French.

Ms. Jessie Voumvaki

Jessie Voumvaki is the Deputy Chief Economist at the National Bank of Greece (NBG). She is also the representative of Hellenic Bank Association to the Business Finance Committee (BFC) of the European Banking Federation.

As Deputy Chief Economist with NBG, she is the research coordinator of the “Greek SMEs survey” which reports “NBG Business Confidence Indicator for SMEs” and provides analysis on various special issues on Greek entrepreneurship. She also coordinates the publication of “NBG sectoral studies”, with topics ranging from traditional growth drivers (such as tourism) to potential rising stars (such as higher education).

After joining NBG in 2001, she has gained extensive working experience in quantitative modeling of economies and markets (within a global, European and national context), as well as wide experience of leading data-driven analysis with clear strategic and policy implications.

Dr. Yiannis N. Tzortzis

Dr Ioannis N. Tzortzis was born in Agios Nikolaos Crete. He is the Legal Counselor of the Steering Committee of the Just Transition Development Plan, Attorney at Law at the Supreme Court, Regulatory Authority for Energy and Associate Lecturer of the Law School of Democritus University of Thrace, specialized in Energy and Environmental Law, as well as Law of Public Procurement. He has been elected as a lifetime Member of the Board of Directors of the “Lilian Voudouri” Foundation.

He is the representative of the “Greek In-house Lawyers Association” to the “European Company Lawyers Association (ECLA)”. He studied Law, Culture Management and Photography in Greece, England and Belgium. He is a Graduate of the Athens Law School. He holds a Phd of the University of London, an LLM of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), a DEA of the University of Brussels, an MA of Panteion University, Athens, and a Certificate on Regulation of Energy Utilities of the European University Institute, Florence. For many years, he has served as a General Secretary of “Hellenic Alumni Association of the LSE”. He has published numerus monographs and scientific articles in Greek and in English. He is the President of the Non Profit Organisation “Green Project” for raising environmental conscience via the so called “green photo journeys”, which are being held under the auspices of the Hellenic National Commission for UNESCO. He is a Member of the “Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain”. He has gained international awards for his photographs, which have been exhibited in Greece, England, France, Austria, China, Colombia, Uruguay, Australia, etc.

Dr. Dimitris Skuras

Dimitris Skuras is the Vice Rector of Economics and Planning at the University of Patras and Professor at the Department of Economics. He studied at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the Universities of Aberdeen and Essex in the United Kingdom.

His research is in natural resources and environmental economics, particularly analysing the impact of agricultural and rural development policies on GHG emissions, on the use and quality of water and soil resources, and on biodiversity and ecosystem services. His work has appeared in over 100 articles, studies and books. In 2008 his work was awarded the Academy of Athens award in the “Class of Ethical and Political Sciences”. He has developed programs and studies for the European Union, the OECD, the United Nations (FAO) and many government agencies in Europe, Latin America and Africa.

Mr. Hubert Cottogni

Hubert Cottogni is the Head of the Mandate Management Department, as well as a Director for the EIF. He is responsible for originating and managing national/regional and centralised Mandates from EU Member States, the European Commission and European Investment Bank. Hubert also structures and manages Funds of Funds throughout Europe and beyond, aiming to leverage public funding with private resources. In parallel, Hubert serves on the Board of several regulated funds such as EFSE, GGF, ENEF and TII.  Prior to this position, he was a Director of Telekom Austria in Vienna, where he spent over 6 years as Head of Strategy and Business Development and later as Director of Mergers and Acquisitions.  He also spent more than 12 years working as a Senior Banker in institutions such as EIB and Creditanstalt AG.  Hubert holds an MBA degree from the University of Innsbruck and an executive degree from INSEAD.

Mr. Nikos Papathanasis

Nikos Papathanasis is a Mechanical Engineer and member of the Technical Chamber of Greece. He received his B.A.Sc. from the University of Toronto and he continued his education by receiving two post-graduate degrees, Master in Management and Aerospace Engineering.

He commenced work in 1984 at the De Havilland Aircraft Company (now Bombardier Aerospace) in Toronto. He served as a member of the board of the Hellenic Aerospace Industry (HAI) and as a member of the board and executive vice president of the Olympic Aviation. He worked for twenty four years as a senior and C level executive at private and public companies in Greece and abroad.

His work experience includes the management of State interest companies as in public transportation companies, namely, CEO of ISAP S.A. (Urban Rail) and President and CEO of Urban Rail Transport S.A. From 2008 to 2010 he was President – elect of the National section of the European Center of Employers and Enterprises (CEEP).
Throughout his thirty five years work experience, he has demonstrated his ability in developing business action reform plans, maturing investments, restructuring and streamlining of companies that led to a significant improvement of their balance sheets.

In July 2019 he was appointed by Prime Minister, K. Mitsotakis, as Deputy Minister of Development and Investments responsible for Industry, Commerce and Consumer Protection. In August 2020 he was appointed as Alternate Minister of Development and Investments responsible for Private Investments and PPPs.

Dr. George Tsangaris

Prof. George Th. Tsangaris was born in Chios, Greece. He holds a degree in Chemistry and a PhD in Biochemistry. He was post-doctoral fellow of French Government at INSERM U200 (Paris, France) and researcher at the same Unit up to 1994. From 1994, he joined the University Research Institute of Genetic and Malignant Diseases and the Haematology Unit, First Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, University of Athens (Greece)  as principal investigator, responsible for the project “Molecular Study of Childhood Cancer”. In 2002, he joined the Roche Centre for Medical Genomics (Hoffman-La Roche LTD, Basel, Swiss) for sabbatical studies in proteomics. 

In 2003 he joined the Proteomics Research Unit of the Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens as a Professor Level Research Scientist. From his research has published: 130 peer-reviewed research papers, 30 review articles in International and Greek journals, 1 book, 6 research papers in Greek journals, 4 book chapters, 26 presentations as invited speaker in International and Greek Congresses, 125 abstracts in International congresses and 65 abstracts in Greek Congresses. 

Prof. Tsangaris is owner of 11 Greek and 3 European patents. In 2016 he was awarded as Researcher-Entrepreneur of the Year, StartUp Greece Awards (established by EU and the Greek Ministry of Development). He is founded member and president of the Hellenic Proteomics Society, founded member and local representative of the European Preventive, Predictive and Personalized Medicine Association. From 2019 he is member of the Advisory Board of Human Proteome Organisation (HUPO) and from 2016 member at Large of Food and Nutrition Initiative (FaN), founded by HUPO. From 1998 he is member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the International Institute of Anticancer Research and member of the editorial board of three international Journals.