MANAGEMENT TEAM

• Prof. Christos Nikolaou, Non-Executive Chairman
• Dimitris Tsigos, Group CEO
• Evangelos Zeginoglou, Group Business Development Director
• Ioannis Makriyannis, Group CFO
• Andrew Hughes, Country Manager – Virtual Trip Spain SL
• Giorgos Dramitinos, Services Director – VIRTUAL TRIP Ltd
• Fotis Liotopoulos, RTD Director – VIRTUAL TRIP Ltd
• Athanasios Papagelis, Technical Director – EPIGNOSIS Ltd
• Manos Moschous, Technical Director – MVNS SA
• Andreas Stefanidis, Non-Executive Director

Prof. Christos Nikolaou, Non-Executive Chairman

Christos Nikolaou is a Professor of the Department of Computer Science, University of Crete in Heraklion, Crete, Greece. He received a Diploma in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering in 1979 from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, an MSc degree in Applied Mathematics in 1979 and a PhD degree in Applied Mathematics in 1982, both from Harvard University, USA.

Nikolaou has recently worked as a strategist, an administrator who promotes innovation, and as an educator and researcher. He is seeking new opportunities for cooperation and/or employment as a strategist, a business developer (especially in the high technology sector) or a researcher for applied R&D in the Informatics and Communications Technology (ICT) area.

Christos Nikolaou’s Specialties:
High-tech R&D policy and planning, management of large organizations, business and R&D projects development, e-business, business process transformation.

Dimitris Tsigos, Group CEO

Dimitris received his diploma in Computer Science from the Department of Computer Science, University of Crete, in January 2001 and his MBA from the Athens University of Economics and Business, Department of Management Science and Technology, in December 2005. In 1998 he was guest researcher at the Computational Vision and Active Perception Laboratory of the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm [NADA/KTH]. In 1999 and 2000, he was a member of the Networks and Telecommunications Group of the Institute of Computer Science at the Foundation for Research and Technology, Hellas. [ICS/FORTH].

In September 2000 Dimitris was one of the founders of VIRTUAL TRIP Ltd, the first successful student start-up in Greece, while in November 2003, he co-founded EPIGNOSIS Ltd, the vendor of the “eFront” e-learning platform, and in November 2005, he took over InfoMap SA, the leading Greek GIS solutions provider, leading to the creation of Virtual Trip Group.

In May 2006, Dimitris was nominated the Special Prize of the University of Crete for Continues Entrepreneurial Development and in May 2007 he was elected president of the Hellenic Association of Computer Scientists & Engineers. Last, in September 2008 he was elected president of the Federation of Hellenic Young Entrepreneurs Association.

Evangelos Zeginoglou, Group Business Development Director

Mr Zeginoglou has a BSc. in Electrical & Electronic Engineering from Portsmouth University, UK. And during his 35-years career, prior to becoming the Group Business Development Director in Virtual Trip, he has served as:

- Technical Supervisor in "Amber Computer Company", a daughter company of the group of AGET HERCULES cement factory,involved in major IT H/W projects using DEC technology (PDP 11/series),

- Technical Supervisor in Hewlett Packard in the International branch office in Athens, Greece having responsibility of main-frame installations in the Middle East area,

- Customer Support Manager in Hewlett Packard in the established Greek branch for the local business, to include all sections of the products [business computers, peripherals, calculators, measurement instruments, analytical instruments & medical equipment], responsible to organise, develop and run support business in Greece on a profitable manner and customer satisfaction.

- Customer Support manager in "SUN MICROSYSTEMS”, responsible to organise, develop and run the support business in the area, on a profit / loss mode and customer satisfaction mentality.

- Business Development manager in "SUN MICROSYSTEMS” responsible to Develop business in SEAME area, recognise business opportunities, propose solutions and open subsidiary offices to begin local business, as well as to support near-by countries with less business activities on selecting the right channels.

- Director for SEAME (Southern Europe, Africa, Middle East) in "SUN MICROSYSTEMS” responsible for the support business of 42 Countries with 5 direct subsidiary offices (Greece, Turkey, Israel, South Africa and Kazakhstan) and dealer channel on the other countries with total budget of about $50 M and direct employee 62 local staff,

- Business Development Manager in "TUV AUSTRIA HELLAS", responsible to develop business for the Group on the public sector and help expanding business abroad on a total IT quality solutions.

Ioannis Makriyannis, Group CFO

Andrew Hughes, Country Manager – Virtual Trip Spain SL

Andrew has 20 years commercial experienced with the last 12 specifically in Value Added Software for the mobile telecoms industry.

As a renowned entrepreneur he has co-founded two London based companies in the mobile VAS space, exiting from both successfully. He later returned to one and completed its second sale. Andrew also co-founded the global industry association Mobile Marketing Association and set up the UK and Italian chapters.

Since 2003, Andrew has lived in Southern Europe working as regional director of sales for world-class companies achieving significant sales with major mobile telecom companies, banks and system integrators.

Married to an Italian, he now resides in Madrid, Spain.

Giorgos Dramitinos, Services Director – VIRTUAL TRIP Ltd

Mr. Dramitinos received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Computer Science from the University of Crete in 1994 and 1996, respectively. He has worked in Greece, France, USA and UAE focusing in a broad range of activities including hardware/software system design, operating system development and information systems design. His work includes, among others,
i)security printing solutions utilized for passport production in many countries, such as USA and Greece,
ii)embedded systems for consumer electronics products delivered to ST Microelectronics and commercialized by Sanyo and Thomson,
iii)advanced, real-time synchronized multi-sensor capturing systems delivered to HP Labs and to major image and sound processing research centers, iv)avionic products delivered to Alenia Aeronautica, etc. Since 2006 he has joined Virtual Trip Ltd as the Services Department Director designing and coordinating large scale IT projects both for the public and the private sector and in 2009 he became Group Chief Technical Officer. His research interests include operating systems, distributed systems, computer architecture and computer networks. Parts of his work have been published in refereed international journals (Academic Press) and conferences (Usenix, IEEE).

Fotis Liotopoulos, RTD Director, RTD Director – VIRTUAL TRIP Ltd.

Dr. Fotis K. Liotopoulos received his diploma in Computer Engineering from the Univ. of Patras, Greece, in 1988 and his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the Computer Sciences and Electrical & Computer Engineering dept. of the Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, in 1991 and 1996, respectively.
He has worked with the Research Academic Computer Technology Institute (RACTI) as a senior research engineer, research-unit manager and consultant for several public and private sector projects. He has also served as a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer for CITY College, a private higher education institution, affiliated with the Univ. of Sheffield, where he taught graduate (M.Sc.) and undergraduate courses in Computer Networks and Computer Architecture. Dr. Liotopoulos has taught Computer Architecture at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki as a PD407 adjunct lecturer and he has been a part-time teaching associate with the Hellenic Open University for the past 6 years, teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in Computer Architecture, Digital Systems and Computer Networks.
Currently, Dr. Liotopoulos is the Director of the R&TD dept. of Virtual Trip, Ltd., supervising a research group of 8 people and managing more than 15 ongoing R&TD projects (national and EU). During the past 20 years, he has managed or participated in several dozens of ICT R&TD projects in his areas of expertise.
Dr. Liotopoulos is the author or co-author of more than 30 research papers and has served as a reviewer and/or committee member for several international journals, conferences and books. He has been awarded a "best-paper award" (PARLE conf.), Vilas and Bodosakis fellowships and a number of distinctions and awards for research and academic performance. His areas of interest include computer and network architectures and protocols, digital communications, broadband switching and routing, parallel & distributed architectures, multiprocessor / multicomputer systems, parallel processing and performance analysis & optimization.
Dr. Liotopoulos is a senior member of IEEE and member of ACM. He has also been a member of the British Computing Society, the Sigma-Chi Engineering Society, member of several IEEE Technical Committees TCCSR, TCCA, TCSA, and member of the Editorial Board of the "Wireless Communications & Mobile Computing" Journal (Wiley & Sons).

Athanasios Papagelis, Technical Director, Technical Director – EPIGNOSIS Ltd

Athanasios Papaggelis was born in 1975 in Edessa, Greece. He has a degree and MSC from the Department of Computer Engineering and Informatics of University of Patras. He has a rich research activity (more than 20 published works on international conferences and IT magazines). He has worked on the Institute of Computer Technology as a Researcher (1998-2000) and various other companies as a software architect since 2000. He is a founding member and one of the two basic stockholders of EPIGNOSIS LTD, in which he is Technical Supervisor since 2004. His interests include web technologies, eLearning, machine learning and efficient organization of remote workgroups.

Manos Moschous, Technical Director, Technical Director – MVNS SA

Manos Moschous was born in Rhodes in 1980. He graduated from the computer science department of University of Crete in 2003 and received his master degree from the same department 2 years later in 2005. From
2005 to 2007 he had the position of staff member to the Distributed Computing Systems Laboratory while he participated in many research industrial projects. He is a founding member and one of the two basic stockholders of MVISION NETWORK SOLUTIONS SA, in which he is Technical Director.
Its business interests include the technical design and development of Value Added Services for Service Providers companies (e.g Internet Service Providers, Mobile Operators, AudioText firms, Content Providers, etc.). Its technical background centers around the content adaptation and multimedia streaming delivery both to mobile devices based on the pervasive 3GPP standards and commodity PC’s based on web standards.
Another area of interest is the utilization of personalization techniques for web content in order to provide universal access even for handheld devices with limited capabilities.
Last two years, he has the position of technical director in mVision network solution SA. He has acquired great experience on management of products and business development. During this period he has developed many contacts with companies proving technology of Service Providers including Packet Video Network Solutions – Alcatel, Envivio, Dicas, Real Networks, Axis, Sorenson, Autotools, qbrick, n-video, media excel, NEC, Vodafone, Cosmote, Forthnet, OTENET, Infoquest, Velti, Win, TIM, OTE, eurotel, dionic, gamers, etc.

Andreas Stefanidis , Non-Executive Director

Andreas Stefanidis received his BSc in Accounting & Economics from the STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK, NEW PALTZ and he is partially qualified Chartered Management Accountant from the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants – CIMA. Mr. Stefanidis is the President of the Hellenic Association of Young Entrepreneurs in Athens, and the General Secretary of the Federation of Hellenic Associations of Young Entrepreneurs - OESYNE, (www.esyne.gr). OESYNE is the National member of the European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs, YES for Europe. (www.yesforeurope.eu). He is also the founder and Managing Director of the HELLENIC MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING CENTRE, (www.helmac.eu).

In 2007, Mr. Stefanidis founded a Non – for – Profit organization, the Academy of Entrepreneurship, in order to offer short specialized courses to innovative young entrepreneurs of Greece and the surrounding countries of the Balkans and Turkey. The Academy of Entrepreneurship is supported by the Educational Association of Athens, “Hfaistos”, founded in 1935.

Andreas Stefanidis has been teaching Financial, Managerial and Cost Accounting courses at New York College Group of Companies since 1995 and also at the State University of New York at New Paltz since 2004 as a visiting faculty. He has been offering vocational seminars in Entrepreneurship and Management Accounting to young entrepreneurs in Greece and other European countries.

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