• Partner, Big Pi
• Vice-Chair, National Council for Research, Technology and Innovation (Greece)

Aristos Doxiadis is a pioneer of private equity in Greece. In his 23 years as investment manager, he has invested in technology startups (with Openfund), and in growth companies across a wide range of industries, from table grapes and health clubs to book logistics and banking software (with Commercial Capital and Eikon Capital). He has participated in the boards of about fifteen companies and taken an active executive role in some of those.

Aristos is also a well-known analyst of the Greek economy and society, and has extensive experience in management consulting and in public policy advice. He holds a BA in Social Studies (Harvard), and an MSc in Economics (Birkbeck College, London).

George Petrocheilos is a Managing Partner at Nexus Management, our venture capital strategy, which he co-founded in 2016. He makes investments in early-stage biomedical technology companies founded by world-renowned scientist-entrepreneurs.

He currently serves on the Boards of Spiral Therapeutics, MindX, Sisu Global Health, Inc., Ashvattha Therapeutics, and WindMIL Therapeutics. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the family-owned PETKA S.A., a construction & development company headquartered in Athens, Greece.

George currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the Kennedy Krieger Institute, the Baltimore School for the Arts and the Johns Hopkins Center for Financial Economics. He also serves on the Investment Advisory Committee of the Halcyon Incubator in Washington D.C. and the MIT Enterprise Forum. George’s honors include Baltimore Business Journal’s 2019 ‘Tech 10’ leaders in Maryland, BBJ’s 2013 “40 Under 40 Business Leaders” and The Hill’s 2013 “Washington D.C. Rising Stars”, among others.

George earned a B.A. degree in Financial Economics from the Johns Hopkins University.

Michail Bletsas is a Research Scientist and the Director of Computing at MIT’s Media Lab. He was a member of the core technical and design team for the “One Laptop Per Child” initiative which created OLPC’s pioneering, award-winning “XO” laptop.

He has been involved with startups in many diverse capacities: cofounder, advisor, director, investor, consultant. Over the years, he has advised governments around technology policy issues and provided expert opinion in technical matters to top-level officials.

He has implemented broadband access networks using cutting-edge technologies including one of the earliest ADSL testbeds and various wireless technologies.  Mr. Bletsas has been a frequent keynote speaker in international conferences and has been engaged in many civic activities.

Dr. Spyros Artavanis-Tsakonas is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard and Professeur honoraire au Collège de France. His current research covers topics in the areas of cellular signaling, developmental biology and genetics. From 2012 to March of 2017 he was the Chief Scientific Officer for Biogen. He joined the Department of Cell Biology at the Harvard Medical School in 1998 and was the founding Director of the Developmental and Regenerative Biology Program at Harvard. From 1999-2007 he was also the Kurt J. Isselbacher/Peter D. Schwartz Professor at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center. In 1998 he was elected Professor at the Collège de France, holding the Chair of Biology and Genetics of Development. He is the Founding Director of the Department of Genetics and Developmental Biology at Institut Curie, Paris while he previously served as Professor at the Department of Biology and the Department of Cell Biology and as the Director of the Biological Sciences Division at Yale University. Dr. Artavanis-Tsakonas is a co-founder of the biotechnology companies Exelixis, Cellzome, and Anadys. He is also the president and co-founder of the philanthropic organization Fondation Santé, which supports biomedical research and educational initiatives in Greece.

Stratos Efthymiou is a career diplomat, currently serving as the Consul General of Greece in Boston. He holds a Master (DEA) from Sciences-Po, Paris and a BA in International Relations from Panteion University. He has previously served at the Greek Embassies in Ankara and Moscow and as Spokesperson and Deputy Spokesperson of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs which he joined in 2004. He speaks English, French, Spanish, German, Russian and Turkish.

Dr. Karalis is trained in genetics and experimental endocrinology with broad experience and contributions in basic and translational research as well as strategic, scientific and managerial leadership of multidisciplinary teams in academic and industry settings. The focus of her interest is in the understanding how distrurbed homeostasis of the organism such as when exposed to external or internal  challneges, drives disease mechanisms and how we can  overcome the insults with new therapeutics.She has solid experience in inflammatory diseases, immune response, stress responses, metabolism, organoids, and organ chip technology.

At Emulate based on their Organs-on-Chips technology platform, as the EVP of Research she has been leading the team to develop disease models in micro-engineered environments and accurately understand how different diseases, medicines, chemicals and foods affect us and elucidate mechanisms driving the spectrum of individual’ responses. Models developed by the team are commercialized by Emulate and employed by a number of academic and industry groups around the world. Prior to joining Emulate she was heading the Developmental Biology Section at the Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens, working on experimental models of human diseases with focus on intestinal inflamation, metabolism and tissue regeneration. She is affiliated faculty at the BSRC Alexander Fleming in Greece and Harvard Medical School, where she was Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and faculty at the Division of Endocrinology of Children’s Hospital. She has been a Helmholtz International fellow and a Visiting Scholar at Wyss Institute Harvard Medical School.

She joins the Regeneron Genetics Center to lead the Biology group for the understanding of new mechanisms for genetic inflammatory, metabolic and neurodegenerative diseases and development of new drugs for human patients.

George Sidiropoulos is a technical innovator and co-founder of Think Silicon. He started his engineering career at Atmel as an ASIC designer, involved in many SoC designs that reached the wifi and the VoIP markets. He continued as an ASIC designer at Think Silicon developing ultra-low power GPUs before moving to the business side. As the CEO of Think Silicon, he was responsible for corporate strategy, business development, funding, sales and IPR. Think Silicon was acquired by Applied Materials and George is fighting to maintain his startup mentality in order to grow the business and the team aggressively.

Conno Christou studied Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Imperial College London. After his studies in 2013, he co-founded Avocarrot along with 3 other college friends in London, and the following year they expanded to San Francisco. Among other awards, Avocarrot was voted as one of the 8 most promising startups worldwide (excl USA) by Google for Entrepreneurs, and was awarded as ‘The Next Big Thing’ at ad:tech – the biggest advertising technology event in the world. Avocarrot raised $3 million from investors in the US, UK and Greece. In 2016 they joined Endeavor global network, and later in the year, the company was acquired by Glispa Global Group for a reported $20 million. Conno served as the Vice President of Innovation in the mother company for 4 years.

Aimilios Chalamandaris was a co-founder and CEO of Innoetics. He holds a BA and a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the NTUA, as well as a master’s degree in Telecommunications and Digital Signal Processing from the Imperial College of London. He is one of the founding members of the team which developed one of the world’s leading synthetic speech technologies. He has led to the establishment of Innoetics as one of the most important companies of synthetic speech internationally, culminating in its acquisition by Samsung Electronics in 2017. Today Aimilios is the Head of R&D at Samsung Electronics Greece, and he is a big supporter of the Greek startup and entrepreneurship ecosystem. Since 2020 he is honored to be also serving as a member of the National Council for Research and Innovation, the supreme advisory body for the formulation and implementation of the national policy for Research, Technology and Innovation in Greece.

Myrto Papathanou is a Founding Partner at Metavallon VC, a $35M venture capital fund investing in early stage technology companies stemming from Greece. She has 15 years of experience in the fields of finance and entrepreneurship and has been involved in technology companies as a founder, mentor, investor and board member. Before co-founding Metavallon VC, she served as Group CFO and Head of Corporate Development at EFA Ventures. Since 2019 she is part of the Advisory Board of WomenOnTop promoting women’s inclusion and representation in business. In 2016 she was recognized as ‘Leader of the Year’ by Linkage Greece in appreciation of her extraordinary leadership and contribution to the progress of business and society. In 2019 she became a Kauffman Fellow, the first from Greece. In 2020 she was included in Fortune Greece’s 40 under 40 list. Myrto is an economist from City University, with an MSc in Finance from Imperial College and an MBA from INSEAD.

Cosma Pabouctsidis was born in Switzerland in 1959 to Greek parents who migrated from Serres. He did all his studies in Geneva and got his Electronics Engineering Diploma in 1978. At age 23, Cosma moved to the US, where he stayed 21 years before returning to Switzerland in 2004. In the US, Cosma worked in two large semiconductor corporations and did two successful startups. Roboteq is the second company he founded. It started it in 2002 as a side project while he was employed at a large electronics chip maker, and ultimately became a serious venture and his full-time job around 2010. Roboteq, which makes motion control, navigation sensors and power management solutions for mobile robots, was acquired by Japan’s Nidec Corporation in 2019.

Dr. Christos Dimas is the Deputy Minister for Development and Investments in charge of Research and Technology. He is a lawyer and Member of the Hellenic Parliament. Before entering politics, he worked in the private sector as a business consultant for The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). He graduated from the Law School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and Queen Mary University in London. He completed his Masters Degree in Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He then finished his PhD in European Political Economy from the LSE, with a scholarship from the Alexander Onassis Foundation. Parallel to his studies, he worked as a correspondent in London for Apogevmatini newspaper while also practicing journalism at the BBC.

George Varvarelis is the founder & CEO of Augmenta. He was a Ph.D. candidate in Computer and Embedded Systems Engineering while working on his family farm for 3 years when he decided to leave everything behind and start creating solutions that help feed the growing world. He has an academic and professional background in computer vision and deep learning. His life mission is to connect the dots of the global agriculture ecosystem and augment the capacity of the arable land.

Sotiris Bantas is the founder and CEO of Centaur Analytics, a company passionate about perfecting global food quality, enabling abundance and reducing waste. Centaur connects and digitizes the supply chain by deploying cognitive technologies and Internet-of-Things solutions. Sotiris has a Ph.D. in Microelectronics and a Degree in Electrical Engineering, both from the National Technical University of Athens.

Fotis Fotiadis, Co-Founder and CEO of Better Origin, a UK-based startup tackling food waste through insect biomass conversion, is pioneering the transformation of organic waste into high-quality animal feed and human food. He holds an MPhil in Sustainable Engineering from the University of Cambridge and an MEng in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Sussex.

Apostolos is a growth-minded executive currently in his second year as Senior Principal in Flagship Pioneering (a reputable venture fund in Boston MA) following approximately 5 years as a General Manager of Bayer Hellas (for the agricultural division), 10 years in M&A (both in Bayer AG and Syngenta AG) with a strong track record (total deals > €2bn) and approximately four years in Portfolio & Product lifecycle management. He combines strong business, science and financial academic background (BSc., MSc. & MBA). His strong belief is that “doubt is a stranger to the mindset of opportunity” and thus one should strive for the aphorism that is commonly heard in the business world “explore and take any opportunity you can!”. Apostolos is an Athenian, married with two kids, speaks four languages, is a keen chess player and a recognized athlete striving for a healthy mind in a healthy body.

George D Bousis began his career at the age of 14 as a professional gamer for a variety of internationally recognized esports organizations. Following the end of his run in competitive esports, he began working at his family-owned business, Cermak Fresh Market which today is one of the largest independent grocers in the Midwest. After a successful tenure in various leadership roles, George went on to chase his entrepreneurial dream, and soon after founded Raise, a leading retail payments, and gift card company, that today is the largest direct-to-consumer seller of gift cards in the world.

Since 2013, Raise has been globally recognized as one of the fastest-growing and transformative e-commerce companies. Under George’s leadership, Raise has generated nearly $4 billion in transactions and saved its millions of customers over $200 million to date. In addition, George has attracted more than $147 million in private funding from leading global investors including Accel Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates, PayPal, and a mix of family offices.

Most recently, George returned to his roots and love for gaming by founding Oath Gaming – a professional esports organization focused on the development of experiential gaming lounges and arenas across the United States. The organization also has multiple-professional esports teams and content creators signed to its name.

George has invested and closely advises over 40 plus startups where he enjoys working closely with founders and their management teams on their vision and product. Alongside his private investments, he’s most proud of his charitable works and foundation.

George is a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO), Leadership 100, a Major Contributor to FWD.us, a recipient of Chicago Business 20 in their 20’s, a three-time recipient of the Goldman Sachs 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs List, and an esteemed honoree of the Forbes 30 Under 30 List.

Niko Bonatsos is a managing director at General Catalyst, a venture capital firm with approximately $5 billion in total capital raised. Working from the firm’s San Francisco Bay Area offices, Niko focuses his investment strategy on finding first-time technology founders with strong product instincts, a robust appetite for learning, and a desire to create innovations with the potential to benefit millions.

In his nine years with GC, Niko has been instrumental in the firm’s investments in Atrium, Audius, Cover, Hive, HubHaus, ClassDojo, Paribus (acquired by CapitalOne), Sleeper, and Snap (NYSE: SNAP) among others.

Prior to joining General Catalyst, Niko attended Stanford University as a Fulbright Scholar earning an MS in Management Science and Engineering. He has studied in several countries earning additional degrees in Manufacturing Engineering & Management and Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and worked as a part of the R&D team for Yokogawa Electric Corporation in Japan.

Dr. Yorgos Koutsoyannopoulos is Vice President of R&D at Ansys, Inc., the global leader of pervasive simulation technologies, member of S&P500 and Nasdaq-100. Based in San Jose, California, Yorgos is in charge of Ansys global semiconductor electromagnetic solutions, developed by a world-class group of scientists in Athens. Prior to Ansys and since 2000, Yorgos led as CEO Helic, Inc., a simulation software company that won as customers 15 out of the top 20 global semiconductor players for multiple years. Helic was a pioneer high-tech startup, the first to raise venture-capital financing in Greece, successfully acquired by Ansys in January 2019. Yorgos earned both his diploma and PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the NTUA in 1995 and 1999 respectively and has attended executive courses in Harvard and London Business Schools in leadership and marketing.

Vic Kulkarni is Vice President, Strategy, Ansys Electronics & Semiconductor Business Unit, San Jose. CA. Vic is responsible for steering the business, technology, go-to-market and product strategy, connecting the dots from chip-package-system design solutions with ANSYS multi-physics simulation technology to address challenges faced by multiple verticals, including 5G, AI, HPC, hardware security, Aero-Defense, mobile and autonomous. He drives strategic customer executive relationships and mergers-acquisitions with Ansys leadership team.

Prior to merging with Ansys, Vic was a co-founder, President and CEO of Sequence Design focused on EDA solutions for power and energy efficient chip designs. He has held engineering and senior management positions in a number of leading companies in the Silicon Valley over several years.

Vic has a MSEE in Solid State Electronics from University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. In 2007 the University honored him with the “Distinguished Alumnus Award. He has a B. Tech in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay.

Theodora Varvarigou is a professor at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). She received the B. Tech degree in Electrical Engineering from NTUA in 1988, the MS degrees in Electrical Engineering (1989) and in Computer Science (1991) from Stanford University, California. She received her Ph.D. degree from Stanford University as well in 1991. She has worked as a researcher at AT&T Bell Labs, USA and as an Assistant Professor at the Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece. Prof. Varvarigou has great experience in cutting edge technologies, such as Cloud computing, multimedia content processing, semantic web, social networking technologies etc. She has published more than 200 papers in leading international journals, conferences and books. She has participated and co-ordinated numerous EC projects. From 2008-2012, she held the chair of the postgraduate program “Engineering Economic Systems” of NTUA. Since June 2019 she was elected as the Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of EYDAP.

Apostolos Apostolakis is an entrepreneur-turned-investor in the technology sector. He began his internet career by cofounding e-shop.gr, the first e-tailer in Greece. Subsequently he was an early investor and on the board of Beat until the sale of the company to Daimler, a Co-Founder at e-food.gr, that exited to DeliveryHero, and a Co-founder at doctoranytime. 

As an angel investor, Apostolos has invested in many startups in Europe and the US including Spotahome, Booksy, Packhelp and Shift. In 2015 he cofounded Venturefriends, a Venture capital fund that has raised 70 mil euros over two funds. VentureFriends invests at seed stage software startups mainly in the B2C and SaaS space. VentureFriends has supported 25+ startups including Blueground, Instashop, Spotawheel and Plum.

Alexandra Choli is a Founding Partner at Metavallon VC, a venture capital fund investing in very early stage technology companies in Greece and Europe. She is an experienced professional in the fields of operations, business development and strategy, an avid entrepreneur and founder of both impact and mainstream ventures, and an active angel and institutional investor in Greece and internationally.

In 2011, Alexandra founded Metavallon.org, a model social enterprise that spearheaded the formation of the startup ecosystem in Greece, and four years later she launched Metavallon Ventures Limited, a micro-fund that pioneered pre-seed investments in the country. As such, Alexandra and Metavallon.org have been featured in publications such as the “Female Entrepreneurship: An Approach to Greek Reality” and have inspired case studies taught in universities, including the Athens University of Economics and Business. Prior to Metavallon, she worked in operations, management, and business development at several early-stage & small- to medium-sized businesses, both for-profit and non-profit, in Greece, UK, United States, Nicaragua and India.

Alexandra recently received the ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ Award by the British Council for her pioneering work in the field of innovation entrepreneurship in Greece and is a keen Guest Speaker in entrepreneurship and venture capital classes of leading universities in Greece and the United States. She holds a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering from University College London and a Master of Business Administration from New York University Stern School of Business, where she specialized in entrepreneurship, social innovation, and strategy. 

Dimitris Kalavros-Gousiou is an entrepreneur and investor who works at the intersection of technology culture and new media. He serves as Co-Founder and General Partner at Velocity.Partners, a pre-seed and seed Venture Capital Fund active in Greece and SEE.

He is best known as the Founder and Curator of TEDxAthens, the most impactful platform for ideas, dialogue and talks in Greece. Prior to his role at Velocity.Partners, Dimitris co-founded Found.ation (a leading startup acceleration and innovation hub in the Balkans), TechTalent School (a coding school) and TechTalent Pool (a recruiting SaaS for developers).

From 2011 to 2013, Dimitris served as a Referrer for pre-seed investment firm HackFwd, leading its pipeline in Greece and Southeast Europe. DKG holds a Law degree from the University of Kent at Canterbury and an LLM (Master of Laws) in Computer and Communications Law from the Queen Mary University of London. He is a 2X alumnus of U.S. Department of State “International Visitor Leadership Program”, classes of 2013 and 2017, the latter under the prestigious “Gold Stars” program, and a member of the Global Shapers Community of the World Economic Forum. Dimitris regularly speaks on the topics of entrepreneurship, technology, design thinking, digital storytelling and leadership.

Katerina Pramatari is founding Partner at Uni.Fund, a Greek VC fund of €30M in the tech-transfer and innovation window of Equifund that invests in start-ups and spin-offs at pre-seed and seed stage, supporting the growth of new ventures and leveraging the hidden potential that exists in the Greek Universities, R&D and Tech Space. Katerina has extensive entrepreneurial experience and has been the founder of two technology start-ups.

She also serves as Associate Professor at the Department of Management Science and Technology of the Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB) and is among the top European experts/academics in the fields of Internet-of-Things (IoT), retail and business analytics. She is a key founder of ACEin, a leading University accelerator that has been awarded for bridging the corporate world with University start-ups. Over the last years she has supported more than 300 teams in the setup of their own ventures and has been among the initiators and supporters of various activities fostering youth entrepreneurship.

Back in 2007, I was trying to turn my Ph.D. research into a startup and wondered if there were other like-minded people in my home country. I decided to look for them by staging a small event for entrepreneurs. A dozen founders showed up. It became a monthly thing. Over time it attracted dozens and then hundreds, an entrepreneurial community was born. We had the numbers but no matter how hard we worked, how timely our ideas were, they failed. Mine failed as well, I know how it feels. I took a step back and tried to work out why. The reasons that emerged were twofold: a profound lack of capital and relevant advice. True founders build; they start from a deep belief, focus on what they have, and try to make the best out of it.

My intuition told me that my community peers could do great things. There were makers, builders, tech enthusiasts. It was my deeply-held belief that they could build successful companies. I had to do whatever it took to make this happen. In my first fund, we proved that a $10m technology company could be built in Greece. In my second, we raised that bar to $100m and it will be cleared. With Marathon, we aim higher again. My journey feels too short to have been told this many times that something “cannot be done.” There are many good reasons for this to be the case. “It has never happened here before” is not one of them.

I like being early and starting small. You help things take shape. I also like working with people who want things as much as I do. You can usually tell straight away if the desire is there. If it is, it will sustain you. Venture is beautiful. Amid rejections and failures, you get to watch the best perform. Someone’s life’s work unfolds in front of you, getting them a bit further makes the journey worth it.

Marco Veremis is Co-founder and Executive Chairman of Upstream and Partner at BigPi Venture Capital. He holds a BA from the University of Warwick and an MPhil from Oxford University. Marco started his career in 1996, as a marketing strategist with Omnicom, WPP and IPG, where he developed global communication strategies for brands such as Nestlé, Smithkline Beecham, Johnson & Johnson and Sony Electronics. In 2002, he returned to Greece and, along with Alex Vratskides, co-founded Upstream. Since then, Upstream has evolved into a leading global technology company within the field of mobile commerce, conducting business in over 45 markets.

Marco served as Upstream’s CEO until June 2017, and today is its Executive Chairman of the Board, while also a partner at BigPi Venture Capital. Marco is an active angel investor and member of the board in technology companies such as Persado, Workable and Hellas Direct. In parallel, Marco is the President of SEN/Junior Achievement Greece and a Board member of the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV), of the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (ΙΟΒΕ), of Endeavor and of the research and policy institute diaNEOsis. Marco has been awarded with the EY Greek “Entrepreneur of the Year” award, in 2013.

Dean Dimizas is a Chief Investment Officer at CA Capital Management, Cambridge Associates’ outsourced investment office. In his role as Chief Investment Officer, Dean constructs and manages portfolios for nonprofit institutions and families globally. Typically these clients have significant exposure to alternative assets. In addition to managing client portfolios, Dean and his team allocate a meaningful part of their time on manager research, sourcing and evaluating new managers across all asset classes for our clients’ portfolios.

Prior to joining Cambridge Associates in 2004, Dean worked as an investment banking summer associate with Goldman Sachs in London while attending business school. Previously he worked as an Associate Director for four years at EFG Telesis Finance, a leading investment bank in Greece. In this role, he advised large corporate clients on a wide range of corporate finance transactions. Education CFA Charterholder MBA, Harvard Business School BS in Business Administration, American College of Greece (Deree College)

George Scangos, Ph.D., is President, Chief Executive Officer and member of the board of directors of Vir Biotechnology. From July 2010 to December 2016, Dr. Scangos served as Chief Executive Officer and as a member of the board of directors of Biogen Inc., a publicly traded biopharmaceutical company focused on the treatment of serious diseases. From October 1996 to July 2010, Dr. Scangos served as President and Chief Executive Officer at Exelixis, Inc., a drug discovery and development company.

From 1993 to 1996, Dr. Scangos served as President of Bayer Biotechnology, where he was responsible for research, business development, process development, manufacturing, engineering and quality assurance of Bayer Biotechnology’s biological products. Before joining Bayer Biotechnology in 1987, Dr. Scangos was a Professor of Biology at Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Scangos has served as a member of the board of directors of various publicly traded companies, including: Exelixis, Inc., since 1996; Agilent Technologies, Inc., a life sciences, diagnostics and applied chemical analysis company, since 2014; and Anadys Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, from 2003 to 2010.

Dr. Scangos served as Chair of PhRMA in 2016, and as the Chair of the California Healthcare Institute in 2010. He was a member of the board of directors of the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development from 2006 until 2010. Dr. Scangos currently serves on the Board of Trustees of Cornell University and the Board of Overseers of the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Scangos received his B.A. in Biology from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Massachusetts.

Anna Protopapas joined Mersana in March 2015, bringing a substantial track record of executive leadership and business experience in the biotech industry. Prior to Mersana, Anna was President of Millennium, where she led Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.’s $1.3 billion oncology business. Anna also served as the Executive Vice President of Global Business Development for Takeda Pharmaceuticals where she oversaw global acquisitions, partnering, licensing, and venture investing.

In this role, she led Takeda’s $12 billion acquisition of Nycomed, a critical step in the company’s globalization. Anna was a member of Takeda’s executive committee and was elected a corporate officer in 2011. Earlier in her career, Anna served as an executive officer at Millennium Pharmaceuticals and served in various senior leadership positions, playing an integral role in the company’s transformation from a genomics start-up to a fully integrated oncology leader.

She was instrumental in the sale of Millennium to Takeda for $8.8 billion. Anna also served on the board of directors of Ariad Pharmaceuticals from May 2015 to February 2017, when it was sold to Takeda for $5.2 billion, and served on the board of Bioverativ from January 2017 to January 2018, when it was sold to Sanofi for $11.6 billion.

She currently serves on the board of directors of Dicerna Pharmaceuticals Anna earned her B.S. in Science and Engineering from Princeton University, M.S. in Chemical Engineering practice from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Constantinos Daskalakis is a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. He holds a Diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, and a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley. 

He works on Computation Theory and its interface with Game Theory, Economics, Probability Theory, Machine Learning and Statistics. He has resolved long-standing open problems about the computational complexity of Nash equilibrium, and the mathematical structure and computational complexity of multi-item auctions. 

His current work focuses on high-dimensional statistics and learning from biased, dependent, or strategic data. He has been honored with the ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award, the Kalai Prize from the Game Theory Society, the Sloan Fellowship in Computer Science, the SIAM Outstanding Paper Prize, the Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship, the Simons Investigator Award, the Rolf Nevanlinna Prize from the International Mathematical Union, the ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award, and the Bodossaki Foundation Distinguished Young Scientists Award.

Fotini Christia is a Professor of Political Science and Director of the MIT Sociotechnical Systems Research Center (SSRC). She received her PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University in 2008 and has been awarded an inaugural Andrew Carnegie fellowship and a Harvard Academy fellowship among others. Her research interests deal with issues of conflict and cooperation in the Muslim world, and she has worked out of Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iraq, Yemen and the Palestinian Territories. 

Her book, Alliance Formation in Civil Wars, published by Cambridge University Press in 2012, was awarded the Luebbert Award for Best Book in Comparative Politics, the Lepgold Prize for Best Book in International Relations and the Distinguished Book Award of the Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Migration Section of the International Studies Association. 

Her research has also appeared in Science, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Development Economics, American Political Science Review, and Journal of Comparative Politics, among other journals. 

Fotini Christia has written opinion pieces for Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Boston Globe. She graduated magna cum laude with a joint BA in Economics-Operations Research and a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University in 2001.

Kostas Fragogiannis was born in Kavala, where he completed his basic education. After graduating from the British Institute of Marketing (HND), he continued his studies in the U.S., earning a BS in Business Administration and an MBA in International Management & Computer Systems from the University of San Francisco. 

For over 30 years, he has held senior executive positions in major companies and groups, such as Emporiki Bank, Interbank, Delta, the Vasilakis Group, Ant1, the Viohalco Group, Vivartia, and the Chipita Group, where he was also a founding member of the Group’s international operations 24 years ago. Before assuming his duties as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for Economic Diplomacy and Openness, he was the Development Manager of the Chipita Group, contributing significantly to the further growth and development of the Group’s international operations. 

Having successfully handled development projects worth hundreds of million of euros throughout the world, he has gained invaluable experience in negotiating with organizations in countries where he has overseen investments. Through his role in the development and internationalization of companies, he has contributed to the creation of thousands of jobs, while also creating considerable added value in each country where he has been active. He has led a total of 18 productive investment projects in 16 countries, 9 investment consortiums, 5 buyouts and, finally, the founding of multiple commercial enterprises in dozens of countries.

Through his many years of international experience, he has gained a full and up-to-date perspective on what is required to effectively attract foreign investments and to promote exports and growth in the international economy.

Alex Chatzieleftheriou, is Co-Founder and CEO of Blueground. Blueground is a real estate tech company offering beautiful, thoughtfully furnished apartments for stays of a month to a year, or even longer. Currently active in twelve cities across the globe – including seven cities in the US – Blueground seeks to solve a lot of the hassles Alex experienced first-hand, as both a frequent business traveler and expat. Chief among them: how we can give people a place that feels like home and help them start living from day one. 

Prior to Blueground, Alex worked as a strategy consultant for McKinsey & Company for six and a half years as well as on the strategy team of Samsung Electronics as an Associate Principal. In total, Alex has lived and worked in more than 15 cities around the globe. In 2009, Alex received his MBA from INSEAD. 

George Palikaras is a Deeptech Entrepreneur and the founding CEO of Metamaterial Inc. (META), a publicly-listed smart materials and photonics company, with the mission to change the way we use, interact and benefit from light and other forms of energy. Over the past 10 years he has forged partnerships with Fortune 500 companies, enabling META to develop and lead disruptive technologies in aerospace, medical, automotive, cleantech and consumer electronics industries. 

His passion for technology and entrepreneurship resulted in his being named 2018 ‘Endeavor Entrepreneur’, 2017 ‘40 under 40’ by Fortune Magazine (Greece), ‘Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year’ by Ernst and Young (Canada). Under his leadership META has received numerous prestigious industry awards including the 2019 ‘Global Cleantech 100’. 

The start-ups he has led have developed strong IP portfolios with over 150 patents, completed two M&A transactions and raised more than $75M in funding. Prior to META, George founded MediWise Ltd. a research and development medtech company based in London, UK. George has received Executive Education at Harvard, INSEAD, UCL and Stanford Business Schools. He earned his BEng. in Computer Engineering, and MSc. in Digital Communication Systems and did his PhD studies in Metamaterial science with over 40 journal publications. He is a named inventor in 30 patents. 

Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, George worked as a researcher at Queen Mary University in London in wearable and implantable sensors development. He also worked in industry at Wireless Technology Laboratories (former Nortel Networks) working with a team of engineers and managers through contract bidding and technology development for large telecommunication OEMs in excess of $30m. 

Costa Tsaousis is Founder and CEO of Netdata, as well as being the original developer of the Netdata Agent. Previously, he worked for 25 years in the online IT services industry, assisting disruptors like Viva.gr, Viva Wallet, and Hellas Online become challengers using technology. Costa is also the primary developer behind FireHOL, a “firewall for humans” that builds secure, stateful firewalls from easy to understand, human-readable configurations.  

Dimitris Tsingos is a serial tech entrepreneur and early stage investor from Aspropyrgos, Greece. He’s the co-founder and President at Epignosis, vendor of TalentLMS, one of the most successful SaaS platforms in the educational technology market. Dimitris also is the Founder and CEO of Starttech Ventures, the private investor & venture builder where Epignosis was created along with several other tech companies. 

In the same context, he had been the co-founder and President at AbZorba Games, a gaming company acquired by Novomatic in 2015. Dimitris holds a BSc in Computer Science by the University of Crete and an MBA International by the Athens University of Economics and Business. He used to be the President at the European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs, the founder of the Hellenic Start-up Association and a board member at the European Business Angel Network. He’s a co-founder of Hellenic Business Angel Network and the initiator of the Scale-up Greece community. 

Marina Hatsopoulos, Speaker, Tedx, was Founding CEO of Z Corporation, an early market leader in 3D printing out of MIT, from 1994 through its sale in 2005. She is Board Chair of Levitronix Technologies, the worldwide leader in magnetically-levitated bearingless motor technology and President of Hellenic Innovation Network. She is a member of the National Board of Research & Innovation for the Republic of Cyprus. 

She is on the MIT Corporation Visiting Committee for the Department of Mechanical Engineering. She is on the Advisory Board of the Nantucket Conference, MIT Enterprise Forum Greece, Eurobank’s EGG incubator, Mindspace Startup Program and the OK!Thess accelerator in Greece. She was a Director of Cynosure Inc., a $400 million leader in the laser aesthetics market; the GSI Group, a $300 million supplier of laser-based equipment; and Contex Holding, a $100 million leading manufacturer of large-format scanners. She was an investor and Director of Dear Kate performance apparel and Tea Forte, a luxury tea brand. 

She has also written articles, essays and short stories which appear at windystreet.com and have been published in Venturebeat, Antioch Review, Bellevue Literary, and other literary journals. She holds B.A. degrees from Brown University in Math and in Music, and an M.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Mechanical Engineering. 

Ambassador Alexandra PAPADOPOULOU is the first female Ambassador of Greece to the US. Prior to that, she was also the First Female Permanent Representative of Greece to the European Union and served in other important positions, such as Head of the Diplomatic Cabinet of the Prime Minister, Director General for European Affairs/in charge of the Greek Presidency of the EU in 2014, Head of the Greek Liaison Office in Skopje and Deputy Permanent Representative of Greece to the United Nations.

She also served as Head of the European Union Rule of Law Mission (EULEX) in Kosovo.

Ambassador Papadopoulou holds a Law Degree from the University of Athens and a Master’s Degree in International Relations/International Law from the University of Pennsylvania (Fulbright Scholar).

Kyriakos Pierrakakis is the Minister of State and Digital Governance in the Cabinet of Kyriakos Mitsotakis. He is a Greek computer and political scientist and politician. In 2007 he earned a Master in Public Policy from John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and in 2009 he earned a Master of Science in Technology and Policy from MIT. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Athens University of Economics and Business. He served as Director of Research at Dianeosis, an independent non-profit think tank. He produced an array of research papers with a strong focus on economic growth and understanding the prevailing perceptions and beliefs among Greeks. He has also worked on technology policy for various research institutes in Greece and abroad and headed Youth Foundation as president. He was born on 1983 in Athens. He is married with three children. He speaks English and French.

Michail Bletsas studied at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and received a masters degree in computer engineering from Boston University. Before joining the Media Lab, he was a Systems Engineer at Aware Inc. He is one of the founders of the Greek mobile advertising and marketing company Velti S.A. and he was also one of the leaders in an effort to provide wireless networking to the island of Patmos, Greece.

Since June 23, 2010, Bletsas is an Independent Non-Executive Director of Hellenic Telecommunications Organization SA (Athens, Greece).

Alex Patelis is chief economic adviser to Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. He has over three decades of experience as an economist, analyst and strategist, working in a variety of positions in New York, London and Athens. Alex started his career with the US economics research team at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in New York, where he worked under Bill Dudley, Chief US economist as well as a proprietary FICC trader in the same firm. In London, he joined Citigroup Asset Management as a quantitative economist. At Merrill Lynch, he held a variety of positions, including Global head of FX & Debt strategy, as well as Managing Director of Global Research, Head of International Economics.

In this capacity, Alex managed the research teams responsible for the firm’s outlook on all economies outside North America, including developed and emerging countries in EMEA, the Pacific Rim region and Latin America, as well as foreign exchange, local currency and external debt bonds. For their research, Alex and his team won a variety of awards, including from Extel and Institutional Investor. He was also Chief Economist at PSQR, a global discretionary macro hedge fund. More recently, Alex was President of Patelis Macro, an independent research boutique he launched in 2010, which focused on global macroeconomic analysis to select clients around the world.

Alex earned a Ph.D. in Economics in 1997 from Princeton University, USA, where his thesis advisor was Professor Ben Bernanke. Titled “Asset returns and monetary policy”, part of his thesis was published in the Journal of Finance. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Mathematics from Sussex University, UK.

Drew Delis is Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Orfium. He has a Masters in Law specializing in Intellectual Property rights and digital exploitation, with 7+ years experience in the music industry.

ORFIUM is a music rights management company with deep domain experience in technology, data engineering, and the music industry in general. ORFIUM’s mission is simple – build software that maximizes the commercial value of intellectual property, and ORFIUM’s product offering includes solutions for catalogue management, licensing, matching, UGC monetization, royalty allocation and distribution, reporting, and analytics.

Nico started his career in Pfizer Italy 16 years ago, serving as Brand Manager of peri-LOE products, Commercial Effectiveness Manager, Business Intelligence Advisor, Supply Policy Specialist, and Junior Analyst. He has since held roles of increasing local, regional and global responsibility.

Most recently, Nico was Global Capability Lead for the healthcare provider portal experience within the Customer Experience team and prior was Senior Director, Global Lead for Customer Engagement and Content Strategy for Pfizer Essential Health. In that role, he managed the team responsible for creating enterprise customer engagement strategies (digital and face-to-face) that supported commercial, scientific and business goals, based on an omni-channel approach and content marketing strategy.

Nico earned his Bachelor of Business Administration degree from La Sapienza University in Rome.

Nick Kanopoulos has over 30 years of experience in creating and managing large teams of development, mass production, and marketing of semiconductor and nanomaterial products for the global market.He is the founder and CEO of Brite Solar Technologies. Before founding Brite he was Managing Director for Channel Development in Europe / Africa / Middle East for the Solar Business Unit of Applied Materials. He was Director of the Multimedia & Communications (MMC) business division of Atmel Corp. managing product development groups based in the U.S., Greece, Sweden and China.

He was founder and CEO of Data Communications Technologies, which was acquired by Atmel, Director of the Integrated Electronics Group at RTI International (one of the largest independent research institutes in the U.S.) and for 10 years adjunct professor at Duke University in North Carolina. He has been a special advisor to the Minister of Macedonia & Thrace in Greece for matters of technology and to various semiconductor companies. He is an Electrical Engineering graduate of the University of Patras, Greece and holds MS and Ph.D. degrees from Duke University. He has published one book and over 100 papers in journals and conference proceedings, has nine patents (issued and pending) and is a member of several international trade and scientific organizations.

Michael Tzannes has spent his career with companies that improve the way people process and communicate digital information.  

From 1990 to 2012, he was with Aware, Inc. (NASDAQ: AWRE) as Executive Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and Chief Technical Officer. After a successful IPO in 1996, Aware became a widely recognized communications technology pioneer and the leading supplier of silicon intellectual property to the digital subscriber line (DSL) industry.  Michael also founded Aware’s patent management operations and led the sale of DSL, networking and signal processing patents to Intellectual Ventures, Intel, Techquity and others.    

Since 2012, Michael has been active in the start-up community in Greece as an angel investor and adviser.  He is currently Chairman and Founder of Accusonus, with locations in Patras and Athens, a developer of human-friendly audio software focused on democratizing the creation of content. He serves as a Board Member at Athroa Innovations, Irida Labs and Yodiwo.  He is also on the Advisory Board of the Phaistos Investment Fund and is the 2020 recipient of the Innovation Award from the Argo Hellenic Network.

Michael is a lifelong innovator and holds patents addressing core technologies in multicarrier DWMT communications, MP3 audio, DSL, Wi-Fi, LTE and IoT communications. His consulting firm, TzPM, offers advisory services in intellectual property assessment, development, licensing, and monetization. 

Michael was valedictorian at the University of Patras, Greece, has a Master’s Degree from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. from Tufts University, all in Electrical Engineering.