Coaches
Dr. Konstantinos Fouskas
Dr. Konstantinos Fouskas is an Associate Professor at the University of Macedonia in Greece, specializing in Digital Entrepreneurship and Technological Innovation. As the Head of the Technology Transfer Office, he fosters innovation and drives
economic growth through entrepreneurial ventures.
He brings diverse experience, having been a start-up entrepreneur, angel investor, and advisor to over 200 startups, offering invaluable guidance and mentorship.
Additionally, he provides consulting services to both public and private sectors, leveraging expertise in digital transformation to optimize operations and drive success.
With over 60 publications in international journals and conferences, stays at the forefront of the field, actively participating in EU-funded projects (over 30). He possesses a keen eye for identifying promising ideas, having served on various entrepreneurial competition committees. Through leadership and a focus on developing a thriving regional innovation ecosystem, Dr. Fouskas empowers young professionals to translate their visions into successful realities, advancing the field of digital entrepreneurship and unlocking the potential of the next generation of digital leaders.
Ioannis Kourtidis
Ioannis Kourtidis is an experienced sales and business development manager with a strong background in innovation and technology transfer. Skilled in identifying and pursuing new business opportunities, building strategic partnerships, and driving growth through innovative solutions. Proven track record of successfully commercializingn technology in various industries, while consistently exceeding sales targets. Strong communicator and team leader with a passion for developing and implementing effective business strategies. He holds a BSc degree in Shipping, Trade and Transport from the University of the Aegean, an MBA specialized in Accounting and Auditing from the above-mentioned institution and a MSc degree in Natural resources: Monitoring, Technology and Bio-economy from Aristotle University of
Thessaloniki.
Nicolas Nicolaou
Nicolas Nicolaou is a US-based senior executive with a 30-year career spanning across several multinationals including Unilever and Deloitte. He has a wealth of diversified, dynamic, and action-oriented leadership experience in consumer products and his specialty includes strategy development and execution, performance management, process reengineering, operational excellence, M&A, internal controls, innovation and new product launches, organization design and talent development. He is currently the VP End-of-Life Tire Solutions and Sustainability for U.S. Venture. Nicolas is the Chairman of the Cyprus-US Chamber of Commerce, and he serves on the Board of the LaGuardia Community College Foundation. He is a founding member of Kinisis Ventures Limited and is an advisory board member of Promed Bioscience.
Manolis Chatzigiannis
Manolis Chatzigiannis has 14 years of experience as an innovation and technology transfer consultant at the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, various Universities, start-ups and start-up accelerators. He is an economist by training and passionate about the intersection of science and society. Manolis brings experience in start-up coaching, Intellectual Property Management and enhancing capabilities within innovation ecosystems; enabling him to navigate through complex landscapes and drive meaningful change.
Costas Tramantzas
Costas Tramantzas is currently general manager of Thessaloniki Innovation Zone. He holds a diploma in Mechanical Engineering from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Division of Industrial Management. For the last 25 years he worked on several
projects concerning Technology brokerage and validation, Innovative Management Techniques, stimulation of research activities as a competitive advantage for startup development. His main interests on the startup acceleration procedure include the elaboration of a sustainable business model and the investor approaching process.
Dr Theologos Prokopiou
Theologos Prokopiou is a Chemical Engineer with M.Sc./Ph.D. degrees from University of Notre Dame. He joined Athens Stock Exchange listed EUROCONSULTANTS SA and its affiliate GNOMON INFORMATICS from 1992 to 1998. After successfully completing assignments in substantial industrial units of Northern Greece, he rejoined from 2005, as the Director of i4G-Incubation for Growth, the first Greek private based Incubator for innovative technology companies. Dr Prokopiou is currently the CEO of i4G SA that manages the Pre-Incubator i4G PRO since 2017 and participates as a Senior Consultant in various national and international projects for Innovation Management, SME development and start-up creation in the Balkans, Turkey and GCC (Gulf) Countries. Since the end of 2019 he participates in Jury of the EIC Accelerator.
Stavros Mantzanakis
Stavros Mantzanakis, boasting over 25 years of managerial expertise across various companies and institutions, serves as the CEO, founding Partner, and head of the Innovation department at Helenos Consulting. This specialized business consulting firm focuses on Futures Studies, Strategic and financial planning, and Innovation. In his career, he has held pivotal roles such as the lead technical expert for the One Stop Liaison Office of the Region of Central Macedonia, where he spearheaded regional strategy and policy mix proposals and collaborated on numerous ecosystem initiatives.
Furthermore, he has contributed as an evaluator for the EU’s SME instrument program and held the position of General Director at Thermi S.A. for 2.5 years. Thermi S.A. is a prominent innovation Incubator based in Thessaloniki, supporting the growth of innovative start-ups and ranking as one of the largest incubators in Southeast Europe. Adding to his credentials, Stavros has served as a tutor for the International Certified
Future Strategist Program in Stockholm. He holds an MBA in International Finance, an Executive Masters in Digital Cities and a Bachelor degree in Business Administration.
Yiorgos Bontzios
Yiorgos is the co-founder of ‘’Agroverse’’, a company that offers mowing and spraying services to farmers and photovoltaic parks through the use of self-propelled robots. In addition, he is a coach in ‘’OK!Thess’’ accelerator and ‘’Walk’’ accelerator of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
Prior to Agroverse, Yiorgos was the co-founder of the tech company ‘’Fieldscale’’. He has an electrical engineering background and holds a PhD in the field of electronics.
Nikos Katsiadakis
Nikos has studied Electrical Engineering and received his MSc in ‘’Management of Production Systems’’from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He started his professional career in Thessaloniki Technology Park being responsible managing several innovation projects focusing in the areas of knowledge management and creativity support. He continued his career in the local innovation ecosystem working in the liaison and technology transfer unit of the Center for Research & Technology Hellas (CERTH). His main duties were to offer liaison, networking, innovation, and IP support services with the overall aim to support a more effective technology transfer and more influential innovation.
Since 2023 he joined the Innovation and Technology Center of Thess INTEC aiming to develop and host the local innovation ecosystem in a more effective and inclusive manner. He is passionate about all forms of innovation and very curious to investigate the role of human mind and knowledge dynamics in the eternal innovation process particularly in large contexts such as parks, districts, and regions.
Michalis Litsardakis
Michalis Litsardakis holds a master’s degree in business administration from University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki and a Degree in Mathematics (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki).
His working experience extends in more than 25 years and covers the areas of business consulting, startup coaching and mentoring, business analysis, organization and reorganization, co-funded projects’ planning, implementation, and evaluation, as well as research and studies in specific scientific areas.
He has been teaching Informatics, Statistics, Business Analysis and Business Organization in public and private educational institutions from 1984 to 2006, and he has several years of experience in the development and support of information systems mainly for scientific applications.
Angelos Manglis
Angelos Manglis is the Founder of Atlantis Consulting, Founder & Manager of Adrion Business Angels Network and Co-founder of HAMAC. With more than 32 years of consulting experience, he has worked with a large portfolio of HiTech/IT Startups and Industrial SMEs and also with hundreds of mainly industrial SMEs providing more than 1.5 billion euros in funding through EU and National subsidy programs. He has been coordinator among many other EU funded projects, focusing in Access to Finance. He has launched many International Venture Capital Events in Greece as well as in other European cities and organized 7 Business Angels Forums in Greece. He is also Founder and General Partner of Blo Ventures. He is extremely known for his ethos, hard work and excellent managerial capabilities.
Antonios Ilias
Antonis serves as the co-founder and General Partner of TECS Capital Fund, the pioneering Venture Capital firm in Thessaloniki specializing in investments in startups focused on Industry 4.0 Technologies. In his role, he oversees the portfolio strategy of the Fund and actively participates in all aspects of the investment selection process, including sourcing, screening, due diligence, investment decision-making, and execution.
Furthermore, Antonis holds the position of Coordinator of Innovation and Culture Ecosystem at OK!Thess, an initiative supported by the Municipality of Thessaloniki, local Universities, and Associations. In this capacity, he is responsible for planning and implementing activities aimed at fostering entrepreneurship in Thessaloniki. Additionally, he manages the OK!Thess startup accelerator program and collaborates closely with stakeholders within the innovation ecosystem.
Antonis brings extensive hands-on experience in startups and innovation to his roles, further enriching his contributions to the entrepreneurial landscape.
Dimitrios Kourtesis
Dimitrios Kourtesis holds a PhD in Computer Science and an MSc in Software Engineering & Telecommunications from the University of Sheffield. He has worked in software engineering research and software product development since 2005, as an R&D engineer, consultant, startup founder, business advisor and angel investor. He has contributed to a range of projects involving applications of cloud service architectures, intelligent systems, data analytics and the Internet of Things.
Through the acceleration programs of Ideas Forward, Aristotle University’s WALK, Confluence Challenge, and OK!Thess before that, he coached hundreds of early-stage founders and worked closely with many tech startups on business model discovery and investment readiness.
Nikolaos Tsoniotis, MEng
Nikolaos Tsoniotis holds an MEng in Electronic Engineering & Electronic Communication Eng. from the University of Hull, UK. He started his engineering career as a Telecommunications R&D Engineer at Intracom Telecom, where he worked for over a decade. He has worked as a researcher in academia investigating emerging technologies and how they apply to Education, Transport, Energy and other sectors. He is a serial entrepreneur with ICT and Energy sector projects and a coach/mentor through the acceleration programs of Ideas Forward, Aristotle University’s WALK, Confluence Challenge and other startup support organizations in Greece and abroad.
His expertise includes product strategy and innovation, and his focus is on how cutting edge technology can create a positive impact for our environment and societies.
Victoria Tsolidou
Victoria Tsolidou has accumulated over two decades of experience in Lean, Six Sigma, Agile, and Cultural Change. Commencing her career in Process Excellence with the AP Moller – Maersk group across diverse countries, she later returned to Greece to establish Greece Lean Six Sigma in 2013. As a Lean enthusiast, Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, and a Ph.D. candidate in Digital Transformation & Business Models, she passionately shapes talents and skills, embodying the coaching vision of Komorebi (木 漏れ日).
Victoria’s consultancy and mentoring span over 5000 hours, encompassing various Lean Six Sigma, Operational Excellence, and Transformation deployments in different sectors. Recognized as an accredited Lean Six Sigma trainer, Lean IT Kaizen, Scrum Master, and a senior member of the American Society for Quality (ASQ), she remains dedicated to inspiring excellence, leveraging potential and guiding organizations through contemporary changes by fostering innovation in learning.
Lefteris Papageorgiou
Lefteris Papageorgiou is a civil engineer, author, motivational speaker and CEO of Entranet, based in Greece, in Florida and in London. He is the designer of ’Smart future home for the elderly’ which was awarded by the EU-funded program ‘Wider, the smart home for the elderly’. Under his guidance, Entranet earned a distinction in the European Business Awards as the National Innovation Champion of 2014-2015 and has received the ’Seal of Excellence’ by the EU Commission for its research.
Lefteris is registered in the Registry of Greek Innovators, holds a plethora of patents related to ‘Smart Homes’, has established 17 companies in 5 countries and sold 8 out of them. Furthermore, he is a best seller author of ‘Startups. From an idea to the Global Market’ and ‘Sales for Startups’. The latter was officially translated to English in February 2024 and its publication rights were purchased by the biggest publishing house of India, for global distribution reasons.
Athanasia Loukidou
Athanasia Loukidou is pursuing her Ph.D. in entrepreneurship at the University of Macedonia. Engaging in entrepreneurial projects under the scrutiny of accelerators and municipal authorities in Thessaloniki, she has demonstrated a keen interest in the practical applications of her academic pursuits. Her achievements extend to participation and recognition in various entrepreneurship competitions, including the Digital Gate Competition & 2nd Changemaker Hackathon Event. As a testament to her commitment to entrepreneurship education, Athanasia is a certified EntreCompEdu Teacher Pioneer accredited by Bantani Education.
Beyond academic and competition achievements, she brings a wealth of mentoring experience to the table, having actively contributed to companies, organizations, and European programs such as Walk | AUth Innovation Accelerator , Mexoxo, Crowdpolicy, Women4IT, and Women On Top.
Eleni Kolliga
Eleni Kolliga is a Digital Marketing Strategist and the Founder of Growthtale, a digital marketing boutique agency offering various services, from digital marketing strategy to content creation & corporate training. Eleni participates as a speaker at conferences & training sessions and has collaborated with numerous startups as a digital strategist. Since 2018, she has been an accredited lecturer by Derby University, teaching at the Mediterranean College in the Undergraduate & Postgraduate Programs of the Business & Tourism and Hospitality Schools at Thessaloniki and Athens. Furthermore, she is an online instructor at Skillbox (a Greek e-learning platform), having taught over 1500 students and professionals. Eleni is a mentor in Women on Top and has conducted tailored masterclasses for accelerators such as ‘Walk’ at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, OKThess!, and SKG Makers, among others.
Argyrios Spyridis
Argyrios (or Argyris) has more than 27 years’ experience consulting businesses – ranging from Startups to Corporates. He is currently CEO of Anthology Ventures, an Angel-based venture studio for startups looking for opportunities in the CEE/SE Europe and the Med area. Argyris is also managing partner in Anthology Management engaging with regional ecosystems building, founding member of HeBAN (the Greek business angel network), and an expert monitor in the European Innovation Radar. His profile combines entrepreneurship, executive experience and also teaching from his early years starting with his work with Alpha Consulting Europe, his executive career in Business Development and lecturing at the American College of Thessaloniki. He is currently active in a wide series of acceleration programs or bootcamps internationally, as well as a trainer for Mentors and Business Angels.
Olga Pachni Tsitiridou PhD
Olga Pahni Tsitiridou holds a PhD in Digital Transformation from the University of Macedonia’s Department of Applied Informatics, and an MSc in Applied Informatics, specializing in E-business and Innovation Technology, from the same department. She has mentored university teams for the JA Greece entrepreneurship competition and has been a coach on the EIT Jumpstarter Programme. She co-founded a university spin-off designed to encourage, support, and mentor entrepreneurial spirit among startups and incumbent companies in Greece. Her main interests in the startup coaching process include market analysis, business strategy, and business development.
Dr. Christos Ziakis
Christos Ziakis holds a PhD in e-Business and Digital Marketing, and an MSc in Computer Science from the University of Macedonia. He is the founder and project manager of imarketing.gr. With 20 years of experience in startup development and promotion, he has been involved in over 300 ICT projects and startups. Since 2020, he has served as an adjunct lecturer in Digital Marketing and e-Business courses at the University of Macedonia, the University of Western Macedonia, the International Hellenic University and the American College of Thessaloniki. As a post-doctoral researcher, he investigates specific growth hacking and AI-driven marketing strategies implemented by startups worldwide