Members’ corner BP 140
Business Partners, Sep-Oct, 2025

Alpha Bank named DEI Champion of the Year 2025

In recognition of the significant impact of its corporate responsibility programs and its longtime commitment to giving back to society, Alpha Bank won a total of 14 awards and was named Champion of the Year at the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Awards 2025. The distinctions come as the culmination of the bank’s efforts to help resolve some of the most critical issues Greece is faced with today and to leave a significant legacy to society through a range of targeted initiatives—from the longest-running corporate responsibility program Together, for Better Health, which supports health centers in remote areas across Greece, to the recent IQonomy, which aims to promote financial inclusion through basic financial education for social groups identified by the OECD as being most vulnerable to financial illiteracy.

Six Alpha Bank initiatives received a total of 14 Platinum, Gold, and Silver awards across ten award categories, namely: Age, Equal Representation and Participation, Gender, Health and Wellbeing, Internal Communication and Employee Engagement, Learning and Development, Marketing Campaign, Mentoring/Coaching, Poverty/Social Exclusion/Unemployment, and Upskilling/Reskilling for Women. Alpha Bank was further named Champion of the Year in acknowledgement of the Bank’s positive influence in advocating for equality and striving to ensure equal access to health, culture, and knowledge.

“Behind every program and action, there is a team of people who believe that all people deserve equal opportunities—to education, work, financial independence, art, life, and health,” said Rouli Christopoulou, Alpha Bank’s Head of Corporate Responsibility. “At Alpha Bank, we do not see inclusion as a trend, but as a value that underpins every decision that we make. We are immensely proud to be able to contribute, in a meaningful and sustained manner, to the change that we wish to see in the world around us.”

AmCham Greece members named among Most Admired Companies in Greece 2025

Member companies of the American-Hellenic Chamber of Commerce featured prominently among the winners of this year’s Most Admired Companies in Greece awards, held this summer for the 11th consecutive year. The awards celebrate outstanding entrepreneurship and are the culmination of the annual survey conducted by Fortune Greece in collaboration with KPMG. More than 2,200 C-suite executives from 500 companies operating in Greece with a turnover of over €50 million participated in voting in this year’s survey. The awards were presented by Deputy Prime Minister of Greece Kostis Hatzidakis, Minister of the Interior Theodoros Livanios, and Minister of Education and Religious Affairs Sofia Zacharaki.

The top 20 all stars of the Most Admired Companies in Greece 2025 list are (in descending order from first): Aegean Airlines, Sklavenitis, Papastratos, Coca-Cola HBC, LAMDA Development, Kaizen Gaming, Metlen, Plaisio Computers, OTE Group, Titan, Mega, Public Power Corporation, Melissa Kikizas, Barba Stathis, Eurobank, E.J. Papadopoulos, Halkiadakis, Ion, Skroutz, and Accenture Greece.

“In an era when the international environment is unpredictable, changing, multifactorial, and uncertain, corporate reputation is the hardest capital a company has. It takes more than just numbers for a company to be successful today. It requires ethics, resilience, adaptability, and a true commitment to people, the environment, and society,” said Fortune Greece’s Executive Chair Anastasia Paretzoglou, adding that the companies awarded as Most Admired Companies in Greece 2025 “have achieved much more than being successful. They have won the trust and respect of employees, suppliers, and competitors.”

Perrotis College hosts Voices From Migrations

On September 4-7, 2025, Perrotis College in Thessaloniki hosted the third and final event of Voices From Migrations, a project co-funded by the European Union that brings young people on a journey of discovery and integration across the EU, giving them the tools to transform personal narratives around migration into levers of social change.

Titled “Echoes of Migration: Documenting Stories and Crafting Policy in Thessaloniki,” the event focused on three main axes: history, dialogue, and participation. Its 18 participants, university students from across Europe, had the opportunity to take on the role of journalists and interview migrants of different backgrounds, recording their stories and contributing to the creation of a valuable European oral history archive. In collaboration with My House of European History, a collaborative history project supported by the European Parliament, participants examined the migratory flows that have shaped the city of Thessaloniki, as well as Greece, from the economic migration of Eastern Europeans in the 1990s to more recent movements from across the Eastern Mediterranean.

The Voices From Migrations project, launched under the European Commission’s Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) program, is implemented by a consortium led by the European University College Association – EucA (Belgium), Perrotis College (Greece), and the Municipality of Rosarno (Italy). The project’s first phase launched with an event in titled “Crossroads of History: Unveiling Migrant Stories and Shaping Future Policies in Brussels” in Belgium in May, followed by an event titled “Voices of Transition: Capturing Migration Stories and Shaping Policy in Rosarno” in Italy in July, and concluded with the event in Thessaloniki, empowering students through training in interviewing, storytelling, and policymaking techniques to actively contribute to a more inclusive Europe.

Find out more about Voices From Migrations at euchangemakers.com/voices.

EY launches new offices in Thessaloniki

On September 5, 2025, EY in Greece formally inaugurated its new offices in Thessaloniki, with a ceremony attended by Deputy Prime Minister of Greece Kostis Hatzidakis. The offices are housed in the Matarasso-Altsech building, a renowned neoclassical building in the city’s historic Ladadika district, which has been fully renovated and features a modern 186-seat amphitheater designed to serve as a meeting place for exchanging ideas and collaborating with the city’s vibrant ecosystem. Hosting more than 200 employees, 70% of whom are aged under 29, the new offices also highlight EY’s role in supporting the development of young professionals and offering higher value job opportunities.

The inauguration of the company’s new offices in Thessaloniki signals the beginning of a new chapter for EY in Northern Greece. With a presence in the city since 1996, EY in Greece has a long history of supporting entrepreneurship in Northern Greece and contributing decisively to the digital and organizational transformation of businesses and organizations in the region, as well as to the creation of a new productive model based on extroversion, innovation, sustainable development and the development of modern skills. EY’s key role in supporting local entrepreneurship and the regional economy is also evident in the impressive growth of the company itself over the past years. Notably, the number of EY employees in Thessaloniki has grown by a remarkable 263% in the three year period between 2022 and 2025.

“We are very pleased to inaugurate our new offices in Thessaloniki, in a building that is closely linked to the history of the city. Our decision to continue investing in Thessaloniki, alongside the new offices we established in Patras in recent years, confirms our commitment to contributing to an urban-rural development convergence—and they also reflect our belief that Thessaloniki, and Northern Greece in general, will continue to play a dynamic role in the country’s development path and in establishing a new production model,” said Georgios Papadimitriou, Country Managing Partner at EY in Greece. In his own speech at the event, Deputy Prime Minister of Greece Kostis Hatzidakis noted that “EY’s decision to expand its activities in Thessaloniki is, first of all, a sign of health for EY itself in Greece, and it is also a sign of health for the economy in Thessaloniki and Northern Greece.”