Αρχεία: Speakers

Dr. Spiros Protopsaltis is Governor and Chairman of the Board of Directors of DYPA, the Public Employment Service of Greece, President of the National Council for Labor Force Skills, National Coordinator for the European Year of Skills and former First Vice-Chair of the European Network of Public Employment Services (2020-2023). Previously, he was an associate professor and director of Ed Policy Forward at George Mason University and served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Higher Education and Student Financial Aid for the US Department of Education during the Obama Administration. He was also Senior Higher Education Advisor to the Chairman of the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and Senior Policy Advisor to Congressman Polis of Colorado. He holds a PhD from the University of Colorado Denver, an MS from the New School University, and a BA summa cum laude from Northeastern University.

Spyros Theodoropoulos leads the food group BESPOKE SGA HOLDINGS SA, which he founded in early 2022 by acquiring NIKAS, ION, AMBROSIA and HELLENIC JUICES employing 1,500 people.
He began in 1976 at the family-owned dairy production company Recor S.A. In 1989, he acquired CHIPITA with the aim of implementing the innovative idea of producing packaged long shelf-life croissants, for the first time worldwide. In 2006, CHIPITA merged with the companies DELTA, Goody’s, and Barba Stathis, creating the Group VIVARTIA. In 2007, VIVARTIA was acquired by MIG, and Spyros Theodoropoulos continued to hold the position of CEO.
In 2010, Spyros Theodoropoulos, together with the Olayan Group and other Greek entrepreneurs, reacquired CHIPITA, which he developed into one of the leading companies in bakery snacks globally. CHIPITA was acquired by MONDELEZ in 2021, in a landmark deal for the Greek food sector.
He is Chairman of the Board of Directors of SEV Hellenic Federation of Enterprises.

He has served as Chairman of the Association of Listed Companies, Vice Chairman of the Athens Stock Exchange, member of the Board of Directors of the National Bank of Greece, member of the Board of Directors of Public Power Corporation and a member of the General Council of the Bank of Greece.

Yianos Kontopoulos is the Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors of Athens Exchange Group (ATHEXGROUP) and its subsidiaries, which operate the organized Greek cash, derivatives and corporate bond markets, and carry out trade, clearing, settlement and registration of securities.

Before joining ATHEXGROUP in March 2022, Kontopoulos held a succession of executive positions at major financial institutions in New York, London, and Athens.

He began his career on Wall Street as an Economist at Salomon Brothers. From 1997 and for the following nine years, he worked at Merrill Lynch where he also run Global FX Strategy. Subsequently, he took on the role of Principal at fxCube, before returning to Greece in 2010, where he served as Chief Investment Officer at Eurobank and Chief Executive Officer at Eurobank Asset Management until 2015. Continuing his global career, Kontopoulos held the position of Global Head of Macro Strategy at UBS in London until 2019, when he joined CQS as Partner and Chief Macro Strategist until 2022.

Yianos Kontopoulos earned his AB in Economics, Magna cum Laude, from Harvard College and holds an MA, MPhil and a PhD from Columbia University.

Vicky Makrigianni is Director of International Relations & Regional Policy at SEV. She has studied International Relations and Politics in various institutions (LSE, King’s College London, Sciences-Po Paris, Sussex University) and has worked in many Greek organizations, since 2005 (among others: Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change, Organisation Against Drugs, European Parliament, Institute of Strategic and Development Studies). Her main task is to help Greek companies increase the number of exporting destinations and their shares in foreign markets. For that, her divison has initiated ExportReady, a comprehensive program for the assistance of Greek exporting companies. ExportReady has three pillars: ExportReady Master which consists of a series of workshops on specialized export topics, ExportReady Discover which offers strategic intelligence for all sectors of the Greek economy and all foreign target markets and Export Ready Connect, that gives the opportunity to Greek companies to participate in trade missions and business networking in foreign markets. These services are destined to all sectors and sizes of Greek companies and their success rate is very high. As far as it concerns Regional Policy, Ms. Makrigianni is in charge of initiatives and actions concerning SEV’s regional members. She is responsible for SEV’s relationship with Regional Industrial Associations and for undertaking joint actions, as well as supporting regional businesses on issues that hinder their day-to-day operation and also, facilitating their access to Central Government.