Teaching staff

Ioannis Pragidis is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Democritus University of Thrace teaching Macroeconomics and Econometrics. He received his Ph.D. degree from the Democritus University of Thrace, his Master’s degree from the University of Warwick and his B.A. from the University of Macedonia. His research interests include econometrics, macroeconomics, financial economics, non-linear dynamics and textual analysis. He publishes in respected journals such as, the Journal of Financial Stability, International Review of Financial Analysis, Finance Research Letters and Journal of Economic Studies among others. He is also a principal investigator in various Horizon 2020 projects.

Kyriaki Kosmidou is a Full Professor in Banking Finance at the School of Economics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece and Director of the Postgraduate Studies in Master in Business Administration-MBA. Prof. Kosmidou holds a PhD in Banking Management from the Department of Production Engineering and Management from the Technical University of Crete, Greece, MSc in Finance and Economics from the University of Montreal, Canada and BSc in Mathematics from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She is a visiting professor in the postgraduate program MSc in Banking and Finance at International Hellenic University and she, also, teaches at the postgraduate program “Banking, Finance and Accounting” at the Joint Program between Hellenic Open University and University of Nicosia.
She has been a keynote speaker in many training seminars dealing with banking finance, portfolio management and financial risk management. She has published more than seven books as well as many research papers on issues relevant to banking management, financial risk management, banking performance evaluation, investment evaluation, portfolio management and energy economics in well-known refereed academic journals such as Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of Financial Stability, Research in International Business and Finance International Review of Financial Analysis, European Journal of Operational Research, Οmega, Optimization Letters, Applied Financial Economics, Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Managerial Finance, European Journal of Finance, The Energy Journal and Energy Policy. She is the Vice President of the Board of Directors of the Hellenic Association of Energy Economics and member of the Board of Directors of the Hellenic Finance and Accounting Association, the Financial Engineering and Banking Society and the Multinational Finance Society. She is an active member of European Financial Management Association, Multinational Finance Association, Euro Working Group on Financial Modelling, Euro Working Group on Multicriteria Aid for Decisions, Hellenic Operational Research Society. Among others Prof. Kosmidou has organized numerous national and international conferences and has participated in various scientific committees. She is the Associate Editor for the Energy Systems Journal, she has edited special issues in recognized journals and acts as a reviewer for a number of academic journals. She has presented various topics in banking finance, risk management and energy finance to over 80 national and international conferences.
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Georgios Panos (44 years old) is a Professor of Finance at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and an Affiliate Professor of Finance at the Adam Smith Business School at the University of Glasgow, where he worked for the past 10 years. He has held previous positions at the Universities of Stirling and Essex. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Aberdeen (2010), a MSc Economics from the University of Warwick (2004), and a Bachelor's degree in Economics with honors from the University of Ioannina (2002). He worked as a consultant at the World Bank for a total of seven years, focusing on financial and private sector development, entrepreneurship, and poverty reduction. He has collaborated on financial literacy enhancement programs with the World Bank for developing countries. His research activities in financial management, financial education, and skills matching and development have led to the attainment of major research programs funded by the European Union, such as the PROFIT program (2016-2019: €1.6 million) and the TRAILS program (2024-2027: €3 million).

He is an Associate Editor of the European Journal of Finance, as well as a member of the editorial boards of Small Business Economics: An Entrepreneurship Journal and Journal of General Management. In April 2020, he was recognized as one of the best 40 MBA professors under the age of 40 globally by the American organization Poets&Quants, which ranks global postgraduate business administration programs. His published and ongoing unpublished studies on personal finance, financial management, financial technology, financial literacy, skills matching and development, as well as financial and social exclusion, are critically impacting these top-priority policy, education, and practice agendas.
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Evaggelos Drimpetas is an economist and a faculty member (Professor) at the Department of Economics in the Democritus University of Thrace. In the past, he served as head of the Economic Department and today he holds the position of dean of the School of Social, Political and Economic Sciences. He graduated from the Economics Department of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and continued his postgraduate and doctoral studies in University of Sorbonne, Paris. He has published five books and he is the author of an important number of articles in refereed journals in the areas of finance, capital markets and corporate governance. Pr. Drimpetas worked as an expert of the European Commission and during his service he participated as a member in several committees. He was also a member of various committees and administration boards in both public and private sector. Today, he is a member of the council of Cyprus Agency of Quality Assurance and Accreditation in Higher Education (CYQAA).

Vasilios Plakandaras is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics of the Democritus University of Thrace, Greece. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from the same department, where he completed his graduate studies, leading to a PhD in Applied Economics. His research interests focus on studying complex non-linear systems and their application to economic problems, using machine learning and econometric approaches. He has published more than 30 studies in leading peer-reviewed journals as the International Journal of Finance and Economics, Economics Letters, Economic Modelling, Journal of Policy Modelling, Journal of Forecasting, Resources Policy, International Finance, Empirical Economics and Applied Economics, compiling numerous citations. He participated in research programs funded by national and European sources, while teaches Econometrics, Applied Economics and Quantitative methods at the undergraduate and graduate level.

George Geronikolaou is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics of the Democritus University of Thrace. He holds a degree in Economics from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh), a postgraduate degree from the University of Tilburg, the Netherlands and a doctorate also from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. His research interests focus on competition, innovation and lottery pricing. He has published in internationally recognized journals such as Economics Letters, Economic Modeling, Applied Economics, Managerial and Decision Economics, Journal of Industry Competition and Trade.

Thomas Poufinas is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics of the Democritus University of Thrace. He holds a Ph.D. in Financial Mathematics from the Ohio State University and a Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics from the University of Athens. He has cooperated as a Visiting Faculty Member with the Ohio State University and the University of the Aegean. He has taught several courses in Graduate Programs and has given lectures and seminars for Professional Certifications. He has working experience in the financial and insurance industry, with a strong background in investments, business and product development, strategic planning, pricing, risk management, company solvency and compliance. His research interests focus on option pricing, finance, investments, risk management, actuarial science and their applications in various areas, including social security, pensions, etc. He has published a number of papers in refereed journals and has participated and presented papers in peer-review international conferences.

Pierre Rafih is a Professor at the University of Applied Management in Germany. He has studied Business administration and Management at Université Paris Duaphine and Business at the American Business School in Paris. He holds an MBA from the University of Richmond – Robon School of Business and a Diplombetriebswirt in Strategisches Management from Hochschule fürangewandtes Management. Pierre Rafih has worked in corporate finance as an investment banker, specialized in equity capital markets activities, including origination, structuring, syndication and placement of initial public offerings, as well as institutional equity brokerage at HypoVereinsbank - UniCredit - Deutschland (HVB). Since 2005 he has been teaching at the University of Applied Management in Germany (Erding, Ismaning, Munich). His main research interests include: Cryptocurrency-Bitcoin- Behavioral Economic and financial aspects, Economic implications of industry 4.0, Game – based learning in Higher Education, Controlling, Crowdfunding, Block chain for businesses and economies.

George Saranditis is an Associate Director at UBS, where he works as a Risk Modeling and Analytics Specialist. His professional and research interests, among others, focus on Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Graph Theory, Optimization and in general Advanced Analytics as a tool for the modern, data-driven business. He holds a diploma in Production Engineering and Management, a Master's degree in International and Business Economics and a PhD in Graph Theory from the Democritus University of Thrace. He has many years of previous professional experience in major financial and consulting companies such as the Bank of England, PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Piraeus Bank. In addition, he has worked as a researcher in European Horizon 2020 programs while he has published his research work in recognized journals such as Physica A. and Computational Economics.