Speakers

Kostas Bakoyannis is mayor of Athens. Having studied at Brown, Harvard and Oxford, he served as governor of Central Greece and mayor of Karpenissi. He has also worked in the Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as an executive manager in the private sector and has held positions in the European Parliament and World Bank – not to mention the Greek special forces.

Emma Tucker joined The Times in 2007 as associate features editor and became editor of T2 within a year. She then became editorial director before being appointed deputy editor. In January 2020 Emma was appointed editor of The Sunday Times, making her the first female editor of the paper in more than 100 years.

Nada Debs is a Levantine designer living and working in Beirut. Debs grew up in Japan and studied at the Rhode Island School of Design. Today her gallery and studio, set in a former residential building in Gemmayzeh, employs a team of 15 from a range of disciplines.

Thomas Chatterton Williams is the author of Losing My Cool and Self-Portrait in Black and White. He is a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine, a columnist at Harper’s, a 2019 New America Fellow and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. His work has been collected in The Best American Essays.

Philippe Schucht is a professor of neurosurgery and the deputy chair at the University Hospital in Bern, Switzerland. He founded a medical non-profit organisation for medical education in Myanmar and has been teaching in the country for 10 years. Following a stint at Harvard he co-founded Trustedoctor, a med-tech company for online consultations.

Mary Fitzgerald is a writer and researcher specialising in Libya. She has conducted research on Libya for the International Crisis Group and European Council on Foreign Relations, among others and has worked on wider initiatives with Unesco, the Anna Lindh Foundation, the British Council and other cultural organisations. She lives in Marseille.

Maria Lemos is the founder and director of Rainbowwave, a multi-label wholesale showroom established in London in 2002, and the founder and owner of concept shop Mouki Mou on Chiltern Street. Lemos has over 20 years of experience in wholesale, commercial and retail sales. Mouki Mou offers ready-to-wear clothing, accessories and lifestyle products, much of which is exclusive to the shop.

Geoffrey R Pyatt, a career member of the Foreign Service, was sworn in as the US ambassador to the Hellenic Republic in September 2016. He served as US Ambassador to Ukraine from 2013 until 2016, receiving the State Department’s Robert Frasure Memorial Award in recognition of his commitment to peace and alleviation of human suffering in eastern Ukraine.

Patrik Gustavsson has built a career around ambitious projects including the development of recreational facilities on the roof of the waste-to-energy plant Copenhill in Copenhagen. The innovative site contains a ski slope, the world’s tallest climbing wall and a green landscape with views over the city and Øresund.

Chandra Kurt is one of Switzerland’s foremost wine writers, having authored more than 20 books on wine. Kurt contributes to various publications and launched the wine magazine Weinseller Journal in 2015. An international wine consultant, she has been awarded the Goldene Rebschere, the Commandeur de l’Ordre des Vins Vaudois and the Ehrenrebstock der Heidazunft.

Katerina Gregos is a curator, lecturer and educator. She became internationally known for curating critical exhibitions examining the relationship between art, society and politics, with a particular focus on questions of democracy, human rights and the economy. Based between Athens and Brussels she has curated numerous international biennials including Manifesta and the Riga Biennial, as well as three national pavilions at the Venice Biennial.

Bernard Khoury was born in Beirut in 1968. He is the co-founder of the Arab Center for Architecture. He has lectured and exhibited his work in over 120 prestigious academic institutions in Europe and the US. Over the past 20 years his office has developed a diverse portfolio of projects both locally and in over 15 countries abroad.

Vangelis Liakos founded Beetroot Design in 2000, along with Alexis Nikou and Yiannis Charalampopoulos. Since then the agency has become a leader in the visual communication and creative design sector, claiming a number of prestigious awards. Liakos has a master’s degree from the department of media, communications and cultural studies at London’s Goldsmiths University.

Sia Kossioni is a graduate of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the London School of Economics. She has been working as a journalist since 2000 in radio, television and newspapers. Since 2006 she has been the main news anchor of Skai TV and has hosted several programmes on politics and investigative journalism.

Elina Kountouri is the director of Neon, an organisation for culture and development founded by contemporary art collector Dimitris Daskalopolous. She is responsible for the management and strategic development of all of its public initiatives, including exhibitions and education. She is a graduate of Queen Mary and Westfield College, UCL and LSE, and lives in Athens.

Dimitris Gerogiannis joined Aegean Airlines in 1999 and has served as general manager, from 2001, and CEO since 2007. Before joining Aegean, Gerogiannis worked in the US, Germany and Greece, and held various engineering positions at Daimler Benz AG in Germany. He has a PhD in electrical engineering from Yale.

Tyler Maroney is co-founder of QRI, a private-investigations firm that specialises in cases that benefit the public interest, and the author of The Modern Detective: How Corporate Intelligence Is Reshaping the World. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, Monocle and The New York Times and has been featured in HBO and Amazon Prime documentaries.

Suzanna Laskaridis is a director of Laskaridis Shipping. In 2019, drawing inspiration from her experience in shipping and environmental campaigning, she founded Bluecycle: the first integrated company in Europe that focuses on the recycling of marine plastic waste originating from shipping and fishing. She participates often in international forums on the circular economy and the sustainable use of marine plastic.

Katerina Vrana is a Greek stand-up comedian who performs in both Greek and English. In April 2017, while on tour in Malaysia, she fell seriously ill and nearly died. Her 2019 show about the experience is still the best-selling stand-up show in Greece. She still faces problems with her movement, eyesight and speech. She has not enjoyed the pandemic.

Previously Greece’s general secretary of contemporary culture, Nicholas Yatromanolakis became deputy minister of culture and sports in January 2021. He has served in senior positions at companies including Microsoft and Harvard University. He has also edited several publications including ‘New Approaches to Balkan Studies’ and was the scientific editor of the Greek version of the Nato Handbook.

Heart Aerospace is a Swedish start-up that is working to electrify regional air travel. Its first aircraft is the ES-19, a 19-seater all-electric aircraft that will enter into service in 2026. Heart unveiled its electric propulsion system in 2020 and recently took an order for 200 aircraft from United Airlines.

Beirut-born art director Rana Salam understands what makes brands and spaces feel utterly magnetic. Her clients include Harvey Nichols, the V&A and Art Dubai. Salam draws on Middle Eastern popular art and culture, merging it with the latest design technology to create a unique vision. Her work has been published in magazines such as ‘Elle Decoration’ and ‘Harper’s Bazaar’.

Point Supreme Architects was founded in Rotterdam in 2008 by Greece-born Marianna Rentzou and Konstantinos Pantazis. They have won various international competitions. In 2012 they were named by popular Greek newspaper Lifo as being among the 20 most influential personalities in Greece. They teach at Columbia University in New York.

Kostis Karatzas is an entrepreneur and investor with a background in engineering and design. He is the founder of The Modernist hotels and The Greek Foundation, a board member of Ianos Culture Chain, a partner at Ergon Foods and a real estate investor, among other projects in Greece and abroad.

Stathis Kalyvas is a professor of government and a fellow of All Souls College at Oxford University. He has held professorships at institutions including the University of São Paulo, Yale University and Lingnan University of Hong Kong. He has written over 50 scholarly articles in five languages. His current research focuses on global trends in conflict and he is a regular columnist for ‘Kathimerini’.

Raised and based in Athens, Athanasia Comninos was initiated to the world of art and travel from a young age. Studying interior design in London set her on the path for her career as a stylist for ‘Vogue Living’ and ‘Casa Vogue’. Comninos is now the founder and creative force behind The Rooster, a wellness retreat in Antiparos.

Alexander Zinell was appointed as Fraport Greece’s CEO in 2016. The firm holds concessions to operate 14 Greek airports and handled 30 million passengers in 2019, representing approximately 45 per cent of Greek air travel. Zinell has held numerous senior positions at airport operations in Antalya, St Petersburg, Orlando and Lima.

Athanasios Ellis is editor in chief of the English edition of ‘Kathimerini’, which is published in Greece and Cyprus along with ‘The New York Times’ as a single paper. A long-time Washington bureau chief, he has also reported from Beijing, Tokyo, Brussels, Berlin, London, Paris, Rome, Vienna, Ankara, Nicosia and Cairo, and often appears on international media to analyse Greece-related issues.