This event offers a platform for insightful talks and conversation, reconnecting with City St George’s, University of London, Bayes Business School, and networking with alumni, University staff, prospective students and other partners in the region.
Hosted by Professor Juliet John, Vice President (Education), City St George's, University of London and Professor André Spicer, Executive Dean of Bayes Business School, we are pleased to invite all alumni in Greece to a networking reception in Athens on Thursday, 14th November 2024.
This is a great opportunity for the alumni community in this region to come together, listen to thought-provoking discussions with engaging speakers Harry Vafias (BSc Management and Systems, 1999) founder of Stealth Maritime Corp and Stealthgas. CEO of the Vafias Group and Costas Andriopoulos, Professor of Management and Associate Dean, MBA Programmes, and learn the latest news from the University and Bayes, and network with alumni, faculty and staff.
Beverages and delicious canapés will be served throughout the networking reception. You are welcome to bring a guest.
Event programme
18:00: Registration and welcome drinks
18:30: Networking reception with refreshments and canapés
19:45: University update (Professor André Spicer, Executive Dean of Bayes Business School, Juliet John, Vice President, Education)
20:00: Fireside chat with Harry Vafias and Costas Andriopoulos
20:45: Networking reception continues with drinks and desserts
About the hosts
Professor Juliet John
Professor Juliet John, Vice President (Education), City St George's, University of London
Educated at Cambridge and UCL, Professor John joined City in 2020. She was previously Hildred Carlile Chair of English Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London, where she held various leadership roles.
Before joining Royal Holloway, she was Professor of English at the University of Liverpool.
Professor John is an internationally recognised Dickensian, much of her work focusing on the relationship between Dickens’s work and the popular cultural contexts of the Victorian and post-Victorian periods, but she is also interested in questions of popular culture more generally.
She is academic advisor to the Dickens Museum, has advised the Museum of London, is a Fellow of Gladstone’s Library and twice a Trustee of the Dickens Society of America.
Professor John has been the recipient of individual and team-teaching awards and has taught abroad by invitation, as well as giving numerous international keynote research lectures.
She is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Fellow of the English Association, a strategic reviewer and member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council Peer Review College.
Both her research and her professional practice are informed by a belief in dialogue between academia and the world beyond, for example, through the media, schools, cultural institutions, and cultural policy bodies.

Professor André Spicer
Professor André Spicer, Executive Dean, Bayes Business School
Professor André Spicer is Dean of Bayes Business School. He is also a Professor of Organisational Behaviour and the Head of the Faculty of Management. He is an expert in the areas of Organisational Behaviour, Leadership and Corporate Social Responsibility.
Professor Spicer is originally from Aotearoa/New Zealand. He began his studies at the University of Otago and holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne in Australia. Prior to joining City, he was a Professor of Organisation Studies at the University of Warwick.
He has been a visiting professor at London Business School, the Kellogg School at Northwestern, McGill University, Lund University, University of St Gallen and the University of Sydney.
Professor Spicer is known for his research on wellbeing, organisational politics, organisational culture, employee identity, new organisational forms, workspace and leadership.
His work looks at a wide range of settings including knowledge intensive firms, financial institutions, government departments, seaports, universities, libraries, media organisations, and social movements.

About the speakers
Harry Vafias
Harry Vafias (BSc Management and Systems, 1999) founder of Stealth Maritime Corp and Stealthgas. CEO of the Vafias Group
Harry Vafias (BSc Management and Systems, 1999) is the founder of 4 shipping companies including Stealth Maritime Corp and Stealthgas,
In 2008 Vafias became CEO of the Vafias Group, which today is one of Greece’s largest shipping groups with 91 owned vessels.
In 2021 he founded Imperial petroleum which was listed on the NASDAQ in December 2021, and was the 7th most traded stock on any US stock market and in 2023 he founded and listed C3iS inc.
He has been recognised through many awards including the SEATRADE young person in shipping award and Lloyds list newspaper for being ‘newsmaker of the year’ for 2012 and 2022.
He has also served as Vice President and President of the consular corps in Greece (CCG) and in 2023 he was elected city councillor in the attic northern suburbs.
As well as being an experienced businessman, he has also recently been seen as a judge on Dragons’ Den Greece.

Costas Andriopoulos
Professor Costas Andriopoulos, Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Director of Bayes X and Associate Dean, MBA Programmes
Costas Andriopoulos is a Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Bayes Business School, City, University of London.
His main research interests focus on how organizational paradoxes enable innovation in the face of changing technological environments.
In particular, he studies how entrepreneurial firms in high-velocity markets can excel at both incremental (exploiting current capabilities) and discontinuous innovation (exploring into new space).
He is the author of numerous highly cited papers on innovation and the books Purposeful Curiosity (Hachette, 2022; Yellow Kite Book, 2023) and Managing Change, Creativity, and Innovation (co-authored, 5th Edition, Sage, 2025).
At Bayes, he is the Associate Dean for MBA programmes and leads MSc, MBA, and Executive Education courses, encouraging learners to find solutions to big problems and take journeys into the unknown by starting new ventures or developing new products in large organizations.
He also heads Bayes X (Research Center for Innovation and Disruption), one of the leading scholarly centers focusing on disruptive innovation.

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