The new seven-member Board of Directors of the Company was appointed by decision of the General Assembly of the Shareholders of the Hellenic Festival S.A., constituted on December 5, 2022, and consists of: Mr. Dimitris Passas, President, Alexis Galinos, Vice-President, Panagiotis Michalopoulos, Konstantina Nikitea, Ilias Papageorgiou, Evangelos Papoulias and Nikolaos Stampolidis, members. The new Board of Directors is comprised up of persons of high standing and experience in the arts and culture and is committed to the achievement of the company’s statutory goals with an emphasis on the development of artistic creation in our country and the greater visibility and outreach of the organization on a national and international level.
The CVs of the members of the new Board of Directors are as follows:
Dimitris Passas, President:
Lawyer at the Supreme Court, co-founder and partner – administrator of the Moratis-Passas Law Firm, with 40 years of professional experience. He specializes in financial law, capital market law, insurance law and insolvency law, and has extensive judicial experience in commercial and financial disputes. He is a Legal Advisor to financial groups and companies and has served as an independent member of bank boards. He has been the Legal Advisor of the Athens Epidaurus Festival for many years, as well as a member of its Board of Directors. Alongside his legal activity, he is actively involved in the field of contemporary art, while providing pro bono legal services to various cultural institutions of the country. He has graduated from the Law School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and speaks English and French.
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Alexis Galinos, Vice-President
Economist specializing in development policy. He currently serves as the Executive Director at the NGO Organization Earth, while at the same time serving as Vice President at the Athens Epidaurus Festival. He has worked extensively in the field of local government, having served as CEO of the Development and Tourism Promotion Company of the Municipality of Athens (2011-2019), and Advisor to the Mayor since 2003. He has served as Special Secretary and Advisor at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the period 2007-2009, while he has also worked as external partner at the World Bank as well as at NGOs in countries such as India and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Harvard University, an MSc in Social Policy from the London School of Economics and a BA in Economics from Bates College.
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Panagiotis Michalopoulos, Member
Assistant Professor at the Department of Theater Studies of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and member of the Collaborating Educational Staff (CED) at the Hellenic Open University. He has taught in the undergraduate and postgraduate programs of the Department of Theater Studies of the University of Peloponnese and in private drama schools, and has also worked as a researcher at the Academy of Athens. As a theatre researcher, he has collaborated with many Athens-based theatre companies and Municipal and Regional theatres, and has designed and edited the publication of more than sixty plays of the Greek and world dramaturgy, as well as theater programs, albums, studies and edited volumes. He studied theatre studies at the University of Athens, where he continued his postgraduate studies and was awarded a doctorate with honors. His research and teaching work focuses on the history of the modern Greek theater, the history of directing, the relations between theater and politics and the effects of historical events on stage performance. He has participated with presentations in scientific conferences, seminars and bi-seminars and has published his studies in scientific journals, edited volumes and conference proceedings
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Evangelos Papoulias, Member
Archaeologist specializing in cultural heritage management. He has graduated from the Department of History and Archeology of the Faculty of Philosophy of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, majoring in Archeology and History of Art. He has a Master’s degree in Cultural Management from Panteion University. In 2012 he completed his doctoral thesis in the scientific field of cultural heritage management in the Department of History and Archeology of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He served as Director of the Chronic Diseases Hospital of Western Athens during 2010-2012. From 2001 to 2015 he was a member of the Research Committee of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and participated in the implementation of many programs in the field of culture. He taught (academic years 2013-2022) in the Thematic Unit “Cultural Policy and Administration” of the “Management of Cultural Units” Master’s Program of the Hellenic Open University. In 2022 he republished his book entitled Cultural Heritage Management in Greece, Contemporary Approaches. As of February 2015, he serves as the Head of the Department of Museums and Historical Archives of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens with a series of initiatives and interventions for the protection and promotion of university heritage. He is the scientific editor and author of the book The Management of University Heritage, the Museum of History of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and has published articles in the field of cultural heritage management. He is a member of the European Association of Archaeologists as well as head of the Civis Museum Network of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
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Konstantina Nikitea, Member
Konstantina Nikitea-Theocarakis has an extensive background in Project Management. Her work collaborations include, among others, Bechtel Corporation / PMA, VIOLEX – BIC S.A and Deloitte & Touche. Moreover, she has worked as Project Manager in various construction projects in Greece. She has been the Founder & CEO of an online retail business from 2012 up until 2022. She is a graduate of the National Technical University of Athens with a Degree in Civil Engineering and holds a Master of Science in Construction Management from Northeastern University Boston as well as a postgraduate certification from MIT, Sloane School of Management.
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Ilias Papageorgiou, Member
Ilias Papageorgiou is an architect and founder of the PILA office. He has designed and implemented numerous projects of different scales in Europe, America and Asia. Before founding the PILA office, Ilias was head of the SO-IL office in New York. Moreover, he frequently teaches at universities, such as Columbia University of New York, the University of Patras, the University of Thessaly and Tulane University in New Orleans. He is one of the authors of the book Solid Objectives: Order, Edge, Aura (Lars Müller Publishers, 2017). His work has been internationally acclaimed and has received awards, such as Curbed Groundbreaker, Architects under 50, Domes International Review of Architecture Awards and the Young Greek Architects Awards. His works have been presented in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York as well as the Benaki Museum in Athens. He was born in Athens and studied architecture at the Aristotle University in Thessaloniki and at Harvard University in the USA under a scholarship by the Onassis Foundation.
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Nikolaos Stampolidis, Member
Born in Chania, Crete. He studied Archaeology in the Department of History and Archaeology of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki under professors M. Andronikos and G. Despinis and received his Degree with Magna Cum Laude. Subsequently, he proceeded to postgraduate studies at the University of Bonn (1975-1978) and completed his PhD in Thessaloniki (1979). He is the author and editor of a large number of books (48), exhibition catalogues (110) and articles in Greek, English and German. He has participated with oral presentations in international and local conferences and symposia, many of which he has personally organized. Furthermore, he has given numerous lectures in dozens of Universities, Museums, Organizations and Institutions in Greece and abroad, Europe, United States, Asia, Africa). He has been the teacher, guide and instructor of hundreds of students of both the University of Crete and numerous other Universities of Greece and other countries in archaeological sites and excavations around the Mediterranean and the Near East. He has excavated prominent sites in Greece, like Vergina, Eleutherna and Rhodes among others. In January 2011 his construction project of the Archaeological Museum of Eleutherna was unanimously approved by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and the inauguration of the Museum and the archaeological site took place in June 19th, 2016 by the President of the Hellenic Republic. He is Professor Emeritus of Archaeology in the Department of History and Archaeology of the University of Crete where he has served for 36 years as the President of the Department of Archaeology and the Dean of the School of Philosophy. He has been the Director of the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens for 25 years (receiving an award from the international body Global Fine Arts Awards). In addition, he is a full member of the Central Archaeological Council of Greece for 21 years and in September 2021 he was appointed General Director of the Acropolis Museum. He has received 14 honors, among which the Grand Cross of the Greek, Italian and Spanish Republic for his contribution in Arts, Letters and Civilization.
