Who

Passionate about human progress, Irène feels extremely concerned with the societal, ethical, environmental, economic and geopolitical issues generated by the actual paradigm shift. She is one of the co-founders of the World Human Forum, working in building the concept since the very beginning.

After many years spent in big corporations, Irène founded Leaders Excellence Partners in 2010. She works as a catalyst of cultural, behavioral and organizational transformation with multinational firms but also with start-ups, helping young entrepreneurs on innovation, creativity and strategic issues. Besides, Irène is one of the Partners of Kairios Praxis, a platform built to assess individual and collective values and help implement them in the new ecological civilization.

Of multicultural origin and education, dual national Greek/French, multilingual, Irène studied science and economics in the USA, Great-Britain and France. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from Brown University, a Master of Science from the London School of Economics and a PhD in Organization Science from Paris-Dauphine.

Irène is also a member of the strategic committee of Sumus, the Venice Regeneration Project and participates in Happymorphose, a French think tank concerned with making the humanistic metamorphosis of our planet come true

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Alexandra Mitsotaki holds a degree in Political Studies at the Institute of Political Studies of Paris and a post graduate degree on Development issues.
She worked at OECD where she specialized further in poverty issues in the developing world. She is a profound believer in civil society mobilization and in citizen responsibility and their capacity to hold governments accountable at all of levels of civic engagement.

In 1998 she founded the Greek affiliate of ActionAid, the international organisation against poverty and injustice. ActionAid Hellas, which she still chairs, has become the biggest Greek NGO.
Since 2009 she chairs the Hellenic Cultural Center in Paris, with the aim of establishing a tool of cultural diplomacy for Greece in the Francophone world.
Reacting to the financial crisis in Greece, in 2014 she co founded and chairs, Action Finance Initiative, the first microcredit organization in Greece with partners ActionAid Hellas and Adie France.

She teaches seminars on Political Economy of Development at the Institute of Political Studies of Paris as a guest speaker.

Jochen Sandig was born in 1968. The cultural entrepreneur is living in Berlin since 1990 where arts and politics became his main focus as founder and director of several cultural institutions: after the fall of the Wall he founded the legendary Tacheles with artists from all over the world. With the German choreographer Sasha Waltz he founded Sasha Waltz & Guests in 1993 and the independent theatre Sophiensaele in 1996. In 2006 he founded Radialsystem as a space for arts and ideas together with Folkert Uhde. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Global Parliament of Mayors. Since 2020 he is intendant of the International Ludwigsburg Festival. Jochen Sandig is a father of two children – László (23) and Sophia (18).

Myrto Vounatsou holds a BA (hons) in Media & Communication from U.C.E. Birmingham and an MA in Arts Management & Arts Criticism from City University, London. She has studied classical singing but also delved into traditional music next to researcher and singer Domna Samiou. She was for many years Senior Press Officer at Megaron–The Athens Concert Hall and Head of Communication at the Molyvos International Music Festival. She has collaborated with various cultural institutions in Greece and abroad as project co-ordinator. She has always been fascinated by the relation of the arts, education, the environment & technology.

Vicky holds a Master’s degree in Cultural Management and Communication (Media and Communication Faculty / University of Athens) as well as a degree in French Literature (Faculty of Philosophy / University of Athens).

She has more than 10 years professional experience in the Promotion and Communication Department of various institutions including Megaron – the Athens Concert Hall, Cultural Olympiad – Organization for the Promotion of Hellenic Culture SA, Olympic Airways – Public Relations Department. Since 2012 she practices Corporate Communication in the private sector.

On the side, she is an active volunteer in several cultural and social institutions. Embracing lifelong learning, she continues her studies at the Hellenic Open University studying Greek Civilization. She is the mother of three girls Theodora (19), Ioanna (16) and Melina (13). Her beloved moto: “You’ve got the brushes, you’ve got the paints, paint heaven and get in” N. Kazantzakis dictum.

With over 25 years of engagement as executive director, instructor, consultant and volunteer in and for the civil society sector at national and international level, Gerasimos has served, among others, ActionAid and Amnesty International as Country Director, and the Greek Ministry of Education as Special Advisor on Volunteering and the Youth Sector. As an instructor, he has given numerous lectures and workshops in Greece and abroad within his areas of expertise to diverse audiences from post-graduate students to UN officials.

He holds a PhD in Management from Bayes Business School, City University of London, on the role of ideology in organizations. His academic background also includes a MBA and a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree.

His artistic background includes Opera Studies and over 150 performances as a member of the Greek State Radio Choir, an international distinction as Artist Photographer (AFIAP), and the publication of a poetry collection of haiku poems in Greek. Among several other voluntary roles, he has served as Vice Chair of the Board of the International Forum for Volunteering in Development (FORUM).

Giannis Kaltsis holds a B.A in Business Administration from Athens University of Economics and Business.

He has worked as a commercial assistant in the Greek Embassy in Rome and London, his main responsibility was to provide assistance to greek companies to establish their business in Italy and the UK respectively.

Giannis has also served in the Marine Corps of the Greek Special Forces.

Currently he is employed in the tourism industry working for a family owned hotel and travel company based in Delphi and Athens. His responsibilities include the operation of three hotels and conference – event management.

He is also the vice director of the Delphi Botanical Garden, a new project aiming to protect and preserve the environment of the Central Region of Greece.

Gina Belafonte was born in New York City, USA. She attended the High School of Performing Arts and is a graduate of State University of New York at Purchase. Belafonte is a civil rights activist, actor, producer and director, who has appeared on stage, film and television. She produced the acclaimed documentary Sing Your Song about her father, Harry Belafonte, and is the director of Lyrics from Lockdown, a hip-hop musical about racial profiling. She co-organised the 2017 Women’s March in Los Angeles and co-directs Sankofa.org, a social justice organisation using culture and entertainment in advancing justice, peace, equity and equality.

A Swedish entrepreneur and change maker Tomas Björkman (b. 1958) has a master’s degree in physics and studied macroeconomics on the side. He has made a career as an entrepreneur in a variety of businesses within financial services, media, property development, and banking and has worked all over Europe. He founded Investment Banking Partners AB and served as chairman of EFG Investment Bank.

In 2008, Tomas established Ekskäret Foundation in Stockholm. The foundation developed a conference facility on its island Ekskäret in the Stockholm archipelago, and the mission of the foundation is to facilitate personal development and social change. He is also co-founder and director of the publishing company Fri Tanke Förlag (Freethought Publishing) and a member of The Club of Rome.

Tomas lives in London and works in Stockholm, Netherlands and Switzerland.

Historian, Irène Dupoux-Couturier co-founded in 1973 CEFRI (Centre de Formation aux Réalités Internationales) to assist private and public organisations to better understand  the big transformations of our world. CEFRI contributes to weaving networks of humanist managerial metamorphosis throughout the world. In 1999 she co-founded SoL, la Société pour l’Organisation Apprenante deriving from MIT. She has co-written the book « Homo Sapiens, à l’heure de l’intelligence artificielle, la métamorphose humaniste » (Eyrolles, 2019), together with sociologist Alain de Vulpian.

Rick Lowe is a twenty-first-century Renaissance man. He is an artist, architect, urban designer, developer, businessman, and activist who is a catalyst for social outreach for underserved neighbourhoods. Lowe’s early founding of Project Row House in Houston’s Third Ward in 1993 became the template for others to follow on how to bring local people together to engage their own creative energies and aesthetic values to produce a “collective expression” to reinstate a community. Lowe’s socially engaged methodology helps individuals excavate talents that they might have either forgotten about or just lost sight of.

   Bénédicte Manier is a French journalist, essayist and columnist. She is the author of six books, including best seller “Un million de révolutions tranquilles” (A million quiet revolutions). This essay displays inspiring citizen-led solutions for the planet (ecosystems regeneration, agro-ecology and community-supported agriculture, renewable energies, eco-housing, civic tech, collaborative networks…) implemented in five continents and analyses the growing empowerment of civil society actors as a transformative force.  

   Combining field research with analysis, Bénédicte Manier has been extensively writing on social development and citizens’ commitment to sustainability in media such as Agence France-Presse, Alternatives Économiques or Le Monde Diplomatique. She has provided expert commentary for France Culture, Radio France Internationale or TV5 Monde.  

   A specialist of India, she has also written on women, youth, child labour, environment and development in this country. Her books about these topics are considered must-read classics (“Quand les femmes auront disparu“, “L’Inde nouvelle s’impatiente“, “La route verte des Indes“).

International speaker of exponential thinking and transformational leadership

Khalil Osiris is an international speaker on exponential thinking and transformational leadership. An author, educator and activist, he spent 20 years of his life in prison and while there earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Boston University. He transformed his life and emerged from prison with a deep understanding of how to use personal crisis and challenges as opportunities for self-improvement.
He is author of The Psychology of Incarceration, which is taught in over 60 prisons across America. While living in South Africa, Khalil implemented the country’s first criminogenic needs re-entry program, GOSO (Get Out and Stay Out) Africa. On Nelson Mandela Day, July 18th, 2013, the first graduating class of 120 men celebrated their successful completion of the GOSO Africa program.

Harry is a dyed-in-the-wool McCanner: after getting his Bachelor’s degree in Economics at Athens University, he started out as a trainee in McCann’s Account Management department in 1993—and has been with the network ever since. In 1996, he moved to Sofia, Bulgaria, after McCann became the majority holder of a local advertising agency. Harry was responsible for transferring the McCann know-how, handled all the McCann multinational clients for 4 years and was the main driving force behind the office’s growth.

Following his stint abroad, be moved back to Athens as a Business Unit Director and later became Deputy General Manager. Harry has handled practically all the clients on McCann’s roster, won major new business pitches and contributed to the stability of the Agency. Most importantly, he kept the McCann “culture” intact through tough times and several management changes. Harry is currently the CEO of McCann Worldgroup Greece.

Maria Papadimitriou is a Greek contemporary visual artist living and working between Athens and Volos, Greece. After graduating with an honours degree in painting from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts (ENSBA), Paris, Papadimitriou began practicing as a visual artist in 1989. She uses the medium of sculpture, installation, public art, video and photography to realize her artworks.

In 2002 she represented Greece for the 25th edition of the São Paulo Biennial with the project T.A.M.A. (Temporary Autonomous Museum for All), an ongoing project still central to her artistic practice. She is the founder of the nonprofit organization T.A.M.A. and the Art Canteen Souzy Tros. Since November 2016 she has been collaborating with the artist Rick Lowe in the organization and development of Victoria Square Project. She is Professor of Visual Arts at the Department of Architecture of the University of Thessaly in Volos. Matters of identity, social integration and exclusion are the recurring issues in her work. Her work has been presented in numerous shows internationally. In 2003 she won the DESTE prize for contemporary Greek art and in 2016 she was awarded with the rank of “Officier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Academiques” by the French government.

Soprano Marlis Petersen is one of the most sought-after singers of her time, her repertoire focusing on the lyric/coloratura fach and the interpretation of contemporary music.

Since her  debut at the Vienna State Opera as “Lulu”, she has been a permanent guest at the world’s most important opera stages, including the Opéra de Paris, the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, the State Operas in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Vienna, the Theater an der Wien, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the LA Opera, the Chicago Lyric Opera and the Salzburg and Aix-en-Provence Festivals.

Her wide-ranging repertoire includes roles such as Marietta (Tote Stadt), Handel’s Alcina, Manon, Thais, Violetta (La Traviata), Elettra (Idomeneo) and Salome, with which she recently celebrated a sensational success at the Bavarian State Opera.

As a concert singer Marlis Petersen is a guest on all major stages and sang at the opening of the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg.

Marlis Petersen was awarded the 1st Austrian Music Theatre Prize 2013 for her performance of the Three women in “Les Contes d’Hoffmann” at the Theater an der Wien. In 2015 she was voted Singer of the Year for the 3rd time by the magazine “Opernwelt”.

Ioanna Ralli was born in 1960 in Athens.

She studied Mass Communication (Bsc) at Boston University and Photography, Painting and Graphic Design at the New England School of Art and Design.

In 1986 she completed her Master degree (MFA) in Graphic Design at Boston University.

She has presented nine solo shows in Greece, while she has participated in many group shows in Europe and the U.S.A. Her works are to be found in private collections and museums.

Co-Founder and Director of Development for international NGO ACTED, Frédéric Roussel has worked in the humanitarian sector since 1987, co-founding the charity in Afghanistan in 1993. Today, ACTED reaches over 14 million beneficiaries in 37 countries. As Director of Operations, Frédéric oversaw the development of ACTED’s activities in Afghanistan, before the organization branched out into Central Asia, then later became an organization with a global reach. In 1997, he founded the OXUS network as a separate entity to oversee all elements of ACTED’s prior microfinance activities supporting small-medium scale businesses. Frédéric Roussel launched 13 years ago the Convergence Global Forum, bringing together public, private and solidarity actors around the SDGs towards a 3Zero “Zero exclusion, Zero carbon, Zero poverty” world. More than 250 organizations are today partners of Convergences in France and in the world. He is also the founder of IMPACT Initiatives, with the aim of promoting advocacy on humanitarian and development issues, and contributing to better coordination, planning and localization of humanitarian action and development aid.

Director Emeritus of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)

Hans Joachim (“John”) Schellnhuber studied physics and mathematics and completed his doctorate at the University of Regensburg. After a postdoctoral position at the Institute for Theoretical Physics, Santa Barbara, he held professorships at the Universities of Oldenburg and Potsdam, as well as at the University of East Anglia, Norwich. In addition, he held numerous visiting professorships (e.g., University of California, Santa Cruz; Oxford University; and Santa Fe Institute).

Currently serves as the twelfth IIASA Director General. Prior to joining IIASA he led the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) from 1992 to 2018 as their founding director. He also served as research director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in Great Britain from 2001 to 2005.Among other learned societies, he is a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the German National Academy Leopoldina, the US National Academy of Sciences, and the Academia Europaea. He received, inter alia, the German Environment Prize (2007), the Volvo Environment Prize (2011) and the Blue Planet Prize (2017).

He served as scientific advisor to a number of eminent political and religious leaders, including the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso and Pope Francis. He has been a member of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) ever since its establishment in 1992. He also contributed in various ways to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

For his achievements, Queen Elizabeth II named Hans Joachim Schellnhuber a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (2004). He was also awarded the Order of Merit of the State of Brandenburg (2008) as well as the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (2011).

Professor Costas Synolakis is a Member of the Academy of Athens, the 40-person hellenic national Academy and a professor at the University of Southern California. He is the Head of Greece’s National Committee on Climate Change. He is a leading coastal engineer whose research over the past three decades spans natural disasters, crisis management, tsunamis, beach maintenance and development, erosion, and geology. He is a vocal advocate of the plight of natural beaches under climate change conditions.

He has gotten the major international scientific awards in his field, including ASCE’s Moffat and Nichol Coastal Engineering, the International Coastal Engineering Award and EGU’s Soloviev Medal. He has published numerous highly cited, key scientific papers on disasters. He produced all inundation maps for the California coastline for evacuation planning. He has appeared in tens of documentaries, has authored tens of editorials for the Wall Street Journal and has given hundreds of interviews in international media such as the NYT, Washington Post, LA Times, CNN, BBC, ABC, NBC, and Kathimerini.

Yannis believes that supporting the free evolution of LIFE to thrive and flourish, should be our Human species universal purpose. Wellbeing (EY ZHN) for all beings. In the only known planet where life exists.

He is working towards this direction through a range of companies, projects, and initiatives, in industries such as Education, Wellbeing, Tourism, Technology, Entertainment.

Father of Chloe. Founder of Generation Alpha Ventures, focusing on a new global generation. Generation Alpha!

Current ventures include:

• EY ZHN. Wellbeing for brands, organizations, people and destinations
• Big Bang Education. Unleashing Human potential for a new global generation
• powerX.tech. Delivering superpowers to people through technology and content
• Place to BE. Wellbeing spaces and real estate developments
• Xplore Blue. Marine life protection as a blue economy and marine tourism outcome

Yannis has been also the founder / co-founder of projects and companies in 10 countries. Including Olympic Games projects in three countries, Harmony4.Life initiative, GenerationAlpha.World NGO and more.

Holds a BSc in civil / transportation engineering from National Technical University of Athens Greece and a MSc/DEA in Geography from Sorbonne Paris 4 University, Paris France. He is a strategic advisor in World Human Forum and the chapter leader for Athens Greece of the Global Transformative tech community. A member of Singularity University A360 community and member of Xprize Global learning Vanguards. Speaker in international conferences incl. TEDx, TiLE, World Human Forum and more.

www.EYZHN.com

www.EYZHN.life

www.BigBangEdu.org

www.powerX.tech

www.GenerationAlphaVentures.com