Programming Partner: Wilfried Martens Centre
April 9-12, 2025
Delphi Economic Forum X
Chairman Of the Board
Hellenic Development Bank, Greece
Since September 2022, George Zavvos serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Hellenic Development Bank, focusing on enhancing SMEs’ access to finance and promoting innovation, as well as the green and digital transition of Greek businesses. From July 2019 to August 2021, he was Deputy Minister of Finance, responsible for the financial system. During his tenure, he designed, negotiated with EU institutions, and implemented the Hercules Asset Protection Scheme (APS) — a landmark reform that successfully reduced Greek systemic banks’ non-performing loans from 45% in July 2019 to 6.8% by the end of 2022, an achievement described by Bloomberg as “a magnitude of improvement unsurpassed by the banking industry anywhere”. He also led significant reforms in the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund, Greek capital markets (notably, the law on corporate governance), and microfinance, modernizing the country’s financial framework. Earlier, George Zavvos served in senior roles at European institutions for over three decades, including as: • Member of the European Parliament (1990–1994) • European Commission Ambassador to Slovakia (1994–1997) • Legal Adviser, Legal Service of the European Commission (2002–2017) In academia, he has been Professor at Solvay Business School (ULB), Brussels (1991–1993), and Visiting Professor at Queen Mary University of London (2004–2007). He holds a Bachelor of Laws from Athens University and a postgraduate degree in EU Law from the College of Europe (Bruges). An accomplished author and speaker on EU banking and financial services law, he was awarded Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Economics in Bratislava (2004) and the Double Cross of the Slovak Republic for his contributions.
Wednesday 9 | 04
Apollon Hall | Amalia HotelWed 9 | 04
Programming Partner: Wilfried Martens Centre
Title, Company, Country