Speakers / Presentations
Brinkmann PhilippCo-founder and CEO at Travelplanet24/Tripsta |
![]() The company started in 2005 as one of the first “Online Travel Agencies” (OTAs) in Greece. In 2010 in the middle of the financial crises in Greece, the company set the goal to expand abroad and to become one of the five leading OTAs in South-Eastern-Europe. Travelplanet24 currently employs more than 160 professionals working in several departments (Development, Design, Marketing, Operations, Finance, HR,..) in its three offices in Athens, Bucharest & Sao Paolo. Since September 2012, he is a member of the board of PETAGA (Greek Union of Air Travel agencies). Since July 2013, he is a member of the board of Spitogatos.gr a Greek website for real estate ads. He loves his work; he is a tech enthusiast, an optimization junkie and a good old wine lover. |
Participation to the discussion |
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Christodoulou AlexCo-founder at Locish |
![]() Prior to Locish, Alex worked as an IT school teacher and took on, on a freelance base, the design and development of more than 100 websites. In 2005 Alex founded his first startup called “izzyrace”, a social web platform for sport enthusiasts. Alex obtained his degree in Computer Engineering and Informatics at the University of Patras and completed his dissertation on Artificial Intelligence. |
Fail fast, learn fast, overperform |
The hard part about a startup, is to create something really useful, for a huge market, in a short period of time, with limited resources. You need to overperform, thus you need to learn fast, thus you need to fail fast. |
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Hiliarhopoulos Agis |
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Coordinator of the 1st Panel |
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Kalliagkopoulos NikosFinancial Analyst at Dutch Expansion Capital and Investment Manager at Startupbootcamp HighTechXL, Netherlands |
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Accelerating early stage, high tech companies in Europe. The case of Eindhoven |
Dutch Expansion Capital is a highly operationally involved VC firm and Startupbootcamp HighTechXL is Europe’s best accelerator program for High Tech companies. What are the differences of High Tech companies compared to a typical startup? How do we find the most promising High Tech companies from all over the world? What type of support do the companies receive? How does Eindhoven, the High Tech capital of Europe benefit startups and early stage companies? |
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Kitiris SimosFounder, Yumbles, UK |
![]() Simos has also co-founded PeoplePerHour and has served as CTO for 6 years, helping to make it one of the top online services marketplaces globally today. Prior to Yumbles and PeoplePerHour, Simos has held a number of consulting and software engineering positions in leading companies and has worked across a variety of industries, ranging from healthcare to food/drink and travel. Simos holds an MEng with first-class honours from the University of Cambridge. |
Just do it! |
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Palandjian OnicGeneral Manager, Europa Aluminum Systems |
![]() During the past 21 years, Onic has managed industrial corporations, venture capital funds and technology companies in Europe and the USA. Before joining Europa, Onic was the CEO of Herco which, under his leadership, became the most efficient clean-tech corporation of its kind in Southeast Europe. He concurrently served as the investment Director of Capital Connect, a pioneering Venture Capital fund. Previously, Onic led the international expansion of Velti, the global leader in mobile marketing. Prior to that, he founded two technology companies, ihavemoved (acquired by Royal Mail) and ichziehum (acquired by Deutsche Post). As an advocate for socially-responsible growth, Onic often speaks at Universities and conferences. His three TEDx talks and volunteer work with UP Greek Tourism gained international recognition. He studied in Boston and earned a BSc in Management from Bentley and a CSS in Business Administration from Harvard. |
Coordinator of the 2nd Panel |
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Papadakis JohnCo-Founder & CEO at Pollfish |
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Insights from Pollfish |
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Pilitsis LoukasCEO, Piraeus Equity Advisors |
![]() Loukas joined Piraeus Bank in early October 2009. Previously, he 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. His most recent role with State Street was the Pan European Chief Administrative Officer, European Executive Board. In that role, he was responsible for Pan European strategy development, M & A and Private Equity supervision, and co-management of the European corporate functions. Loukas holds a Law degree from Athens University Law School, an LLM in international financial services law from Boston University Law School and an MSF from Boston College, and he is a graduate of the Executive Development Program from the Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania, USA and a frequent speaker in investment related events. |
Assisting new entrepreneurs establish and grow globally their start up |
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Pogkas DimitriosJournalist, Senior Startups & Entrepreneurship Editor, EMEA.gr |
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Coordinator of the 3rd Panel |
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Raptopoulos EmmanouelCOO Head SAP South Europe, MD SAP Hellas, Greece, Cyprus & Malta |
![]() During 2000-2003 he worked as Project Manager on projects - regarding supply chain - and then undertook the establishment of the Business Development Division under the Sales Manager. From 2006 to January 2008 he was Sales Director, and from January 2008 his company entrusted him the position of Managing Director. Since January 2013, Manos Raptopoulos took over the position of COO Head for South Europe (Greece & Cyprus, Iberia, Italy, Turkey & Israel), while still remains the Managing Director for Greece and Cyprus. |
Welcome Notes |
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Sarikas OmirosDirector, Mergers and Acquisitions, AHV Associates LLP, UK |
![]() Omiros has worked on projects in London, Zürich and New York for venture capital and private equity funds of various types and sizes (from $200 million to $20 billion of assets under management), including Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, Ares Life Sciences (Ernesto Bertarelli’s fund), Cinven, ECI Partners, Silverfleet Capital and Hutton Collins. In addition, he has advised on strategic M&A business projects for IntraLinks, Deloitte Corporate Finance, AMEX (S&P 500 serial acquirer with $147 billion assets), Credit Suisse (First Boston) Investment Bank and Lyceum Capital private equity fund. Omiros is a regular conference speaker and author of a number of articles on M&A and PE. He holds several awards, degrees and qualifications including the CCF from CISI and read, amongst others, technology, business and finance at the London School of Economics (LSE), Cass Business School (CBS) and the London Business School (LBS) respectively. He is a Member of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment (MCISI) and the UK’s Hellenic Bankers Association as well as Fellow at the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA). Omiros has been recognised as the first ‘M&A Young Gun’ of the year by ACQ magazine and is admitted to the Worshipful Company of International Bankers. |
How to get your company funded by international private equity funds, boost growth and global exposure: A Guide for SMEs |
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Siokos Stavros, Ph.DChief Executive Officer, Sciens Alternative Investments, UK |
![]() For 13 years, he served as managing director within the equities division of Citigroup in London, where he was global head of alternative execution sales (program trading, algorithmic trading, Direct Market Access), global head of pre and post trade analytics (responsible for Best Execution Consulting Services - BECS), global head of portfolio trading strategies, as well as European head of the company's pension funds and insurance companies’ structured solutions for equities. During that period, he and his teams were top ranked in most of the major global and European investment quantitative research surveys. Subsequently, he was head of investment management for the Piraeus Bank in Greece. He was Chairman of Piraeus Asset Management and Piraeus Equity Advisors, the private equity and venture capital arms of the Piraeus Group, both of which he initiated and implemented. He was also Chairman of Piraeus Wealth Management, a joint venture between the Piraeus Bank and BNP Paribas Wealth Management. He initiated and established this joint venture for the provision of wealth management services in the countries where the Piraeus Group operates. Dr. Siokos holds an electrical and computer engineering diploma from the University of Patras, Greece, as well as a master's degree in the same field and a Ph.D. in operations research (with focus on financial engineering) from the University of Massachusetts. He is the author of several academic and professional papers, as well as a number of international books. |
Myths and realities of Private Equity Investments in Greece |
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Trachanis SpyrosOdyssey Venture Partners, Greece |
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One year after the first ignition |
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Tziralis GeorgePartner, OpenFund, Greece |
![]() He has founded a couple of software companies, one specializing in prediction markets and another in data mining; in both times he failed. He is widely recognized as the initiator the Open Coffee community in Greece, hosting monthly meetings in Athens since 2007. In 2009, he co-founded Openfund, which he now serves as a Partner. He is mostly focusing on the business side of the operations, while serving in a number of boards of portfolio companies. George holds a PhD in Operations Research and a Diploma in Mechanical Engineering, both from the National Technical University of Athens. He blogs at gtziralis.com, and can be reached at gt@theopenfund.com |
Greek Facts and Figures: The Openfund case |
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Verginadis YiannisCo-Founder & CEO of PeekInToo |
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Starting up: The Peekintoo Experience |
Peekintoo is a Greek startup that was officially launched on December of 2013. It offers an exciting new way of virtually experiencing and witnessing anything that is happening around the world, captured in real-time and upon request. Peekintoo is an anonymous social network which enables users to request and upload visual content. Users can request “Peeks” (12 second videos) from any desired location around the globe, view “Past Peeks” (videos uploaded up to two hours ago), and contribute “PeekShouts” (voluntary Peeks capturing interesting incidents or events) using their mobile devices. During this presentation I will discuss: • The main challenges of the global market we are addressing • How Peekintoo works • Our major highlights, experiences and difficulties thus far |
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