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Loukas Pilitsis returned to Greece in late 2009, after 21 years of a successful career to help found the Piraeus Venture Capital and Private Equity (VC-PE ) Group. He has 20+ years experience in global capital markets and executive management in the US and Europe with a great start-up and investment deal expertise in various sectors, with primary focus in technology and financial services investments. Loukas is the Head of the VC-PE Group and CEO of Piraeus Equity Advisors, the vehicle in charge of all the Private Equity and Venture Capital activities of Piraeus Group. As he has a long experience in technology investing he has also assumed the role of the Fund Manager for PJ Tech Catalyst fund. He is very keen to help reshape the investment and new entrepreneurship market in Greece and help create the startup ecosystem in the country. He is a member of the BoD of Junior Achievement organization in Greece and member of the Committee of Innovation, Education and Entrepreneurship at the Greek-American Chamber of Commerce, both promoting the new entrepreneurship and innovation in Greece.
Previously, Loukas was with State Street since 1995. He held senior positions in investment banking, corporate venture capital & private equity, strategy development and risk management in Boston, US and London, UK. He was in the forefront of technology focused corporate venture capital deals in the financial services sector in the US before and after the internet bubble, gaining a great experience in the field. His most recent role with State Street was the Pan European Chief Administrative Officer, European Executive Board. In that role, he was also responsible for Pan European strategy development, M & A and Private Equity/Venture Capital supervision.
Loukas holds a Law degree from Athens University Law School, an LLM from Boston University Law School and an MSF from Boston College, both in the US, and he is a graduate of the Executive Development Program from the Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania, USA
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Michael Dimitropoulos is Investment Manager of the Piraeus VC-PE Group with technology focus. He previously served as Head of Research of the Piraeus VC-PE Group.
Michael joined Piraeus Bank Group in June 2001. He was Director of Research & Investment Strategy at Hellenic Investment Company (the Bank’s listed closed-end fund subsidiary) until September 2005, and subsequently worked as a Senior Investment Officer in the Bank’s Wealth Management division, before joining the VC-PE Group in September 2009. Previously, he worked as Investment Associate at Global Finance (private equity), Head of Research at Eurocorp Group and Chief Analyst at National Securities (NBG Group). Michael holds a degree in Business Engineering and a Master in European Business from the Solvay Brussels School of Economics & Management (Belgium), where he also worked as a full-time teaching assistant in Finance and in Microeconomics.
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Nikos Antoniou is an Investment Manager of the Piraeus VC-PE Group. He joined Piraeus Bank Group in April 2010 and as an Investment Manager has been responsible for searching, evaluating and executing various venture-capital types of investment opportunities. Nikos has been involved (manager/advisor) in a series of technology related type of investments ranging from angel (i.e. openfund investments) to later stage.
Previously, for 2 years Nikos was an Associate Director of Investment Banking at ALPHA BANK. During June 2000- February 2008, he was an Account Officer of Investment Banking at PROTON BANK. During his investment banking years, Nikos advised several companies in initial public offerings, secondary equity offerings, mergers and acquisitions and tender offers. He was managing due diligence and Offering Memoranda preparation processes, along with performing company valuations, participating in roadshows and interacting with local capital market authorities on corporate actions. At the start of his career, Nikos worked for approx. 2 years at Prudential Securities in Atlanta, USA.
Nikos holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Oglethorpe University, Atlanta, USA and an MBA from Auburn University, Auburn, USA
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Kostas Mallios brings over 20 years of executive level experience to the Fund. Mr. Mallios believes in the power of ideas and the individual's ability to make a difference. His interdisciplinary experiences in building new businesses and expanding existing ones have spanned research and development, product development, mergers and acquisitions and business development.
Kostas Mallios is currently Vice President at Intellectual Ventures, an invention capital firm, where he manages the company’s business innovation strategy and R&D organization. Through invention and strategic partnerships across industry and governments, he is creating new business opportunities founded in invention that aim to address some of the world's biggest challenges and opportunities. In addition, Mr. Mallios is designing intellectual property based business models that will generate new companies based on disruptive technology.
Prior to joining Intellectual Ventures, Mr. Mallios spent 15 years at Microsoft Corporation in a variety of executive roles. In his last role as a Partner and General Manager of Strategy and Business Development, he blended emerging technologies and business models to bring new technologies to market. Prior to that, he led the Rich Media Group and Labs building transformative media experiences across Microsoft product lines. In addition, Mr. Mallios spent several years in M&A where he drove business strategy for numerous deals totaling more than $3.7B and co-authored Microsoft’s mergers and acquisition playbook. Prior to his M&A work, Mr. Mallios was Director in the Enterprise Program Management group, which helped execute Microsoft’s Enterprise market entry.
In addition, Mr. Mallios has held senior positions in the publishing, consulting, and service industries prior to Microsoft. Mr. Mallios received his M.B.A. in Management and Technology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and graduated from Siena College with a B.S. in Marketing Management.
Mr. Mallios is a sought after speaker on innovation and new business trends. He has presented at multiple international conferences that include DLD, TED and the Aspen Institute.
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Vasilis Theoharakis is the Chairman of the Board and co-founder of NanoPhos S.A., the very successful spin off of ALBA which manufactures nanotechnology-based products. NanoPhos S.A. is quickly developing in 25 countries including the UK, Japan, Norway, Sweden, France, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia, UAE, India, New Zealand, Mexico, Turkey, Russia and China. Vasilis worked for many years in Silicon Valley and participated in entrepreneurial endeavours that made today’s giants like 3Com, while he began his career as a research engineer at IBM research centre.
He is also an Associate Professor of Marketing & Entrepreneurship at ALBA, Greece and a Senior Lecturer at the Aston Business School, UK. He holds a B.Eng. (honours) and an M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering, an M.B.A. (with distinction) from NYU, and a Ph.D. from the University of Warwick. He has taught at the University of California, Berkeley and Golden Gate University.
Vasilis has spent several years in Silicon Valley at senior level marketing positions with high-tech startups and companies such as 3Com. He started his career as a research engineer with an expertise in optoelectronics at IBM’s prestigious T.J. Watson Research Center where he won the Research Division’s Award. Vasilis’ academic research focuses on strategic marketing, new product development and entrepreneurship. He was chairman and is currently board member of the European Business Plan of the Year Competition (EBPYC) Foundation. His student teams have won the EBPYC three times and he holds the best overall record in Europe as a coach at the competition.
His has published in leading academic journals such as International Journal of Research in Marketing, Research Policy, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Marketing Letters, Journal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management, Review of Marketing Science, Communications of the ACM, Contemporary Accounting Research, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Operations Management, The American Statistician, Journal of the European Economics Association and IEEE Network. He is among the most downloaded authors worldwide on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN).
Vasilis has extensive experience consulting national and international firms and is actively involved in executive education.
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Chris Tsangos is one leading figure in the technology field who has established the Innovation Centre with Bill Gates and won the HMS Royal Award for Exports from Queen Elizabeth II. He has excelled as a member of the Platinum Club of Microsoft Corporation and has developed the first innovation competitions in Greece.
After 25 years of international career in leading IT companies today Chris is a Technology investor with the European Investment Fund, a Web Entrepreneur and Business Consultant.
With a strong social service, he is the Chairman of Young Entrepreneurs organization Junior Achievement in Greece and member of the Innovation Committee of the Hellenic-American Chamber of Commerce.
Chris was President & CEO of Microsoft in Greece for 8 years and Regional Manager of ‘Marketing & Online Consumer’ for Central and Eastern Europe. Previously was the CEO of Intel in Greece for 6 years and Director of Networks for Europe, Middle East and Africa based in London. He has assumed an advisory role in technology of the European Union and developed electronic innovations for Airbus, Jaguar and Santa Cruz Operation.
His computer studies were conducted at Reading University and UMIST and issues in Management at INSEAD and Wharton Business School.
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Arnaud Henin joined Piraeus Equity Advisors in the summer of 2010, shortly after the creation of the Piraeus Clean Energy fund and is now leading the Clean Energy team on sourcing, structuring, executing and managing deals and is also advisor to PJ TechCatalyst due to his prior technology start-up experience.
He joined from McKinsey & Co. in London, where he worked as a manager in the energy, renewables and climate change areas. From February 2007 to August 2010 at McKinsey, Mr. Henin served a range of clients on financial due diligence, strategy, and operations projects across Europe and Africa, including leading teams working on renewable investments, market entry strategy, and energy market policy. Prior to McKinsey, Arnaud had worked as an engineer and manager with a number of start-ups in the high tech and logistics sectors across Canada including DragonWave, a wireless broadband start-up, Focus Microwaves, an OEM of high frequency test equipment and Fusion, a destination mangement company.
Arnaud holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from McGill University in Montreal, Canada and an MBA from Insead, France, with a focus on entrepreneurship.