CYA is delighted to invite you to our upcoming lecture in our Virtual Lecture Series.  On Wednesday, 21 April 2021, at 12 p.m. (EST) / 7 p.m.

(Athens), CYA has the honor of hosting Nicolas Yatromanolakis, Greece’s Deputy Minister of Culture and Sports, responsible for Contemporary Culture.  A powerful advocate for contemporary culture in Greece, Nicolas Yatromanolakis is the first Greek government official to be appointed to this newly established section of this Ministry.

He will discuss “Culture as a driver for growth.”

Besides its intrinsic value, culture can be a powerful driver for development, with community-wide social, economic, and environmental impacts. The adoption of alternative, culture-centric, sustainable growth models for local communities and regions, can create ecosystems that incorporate the tourism, education, agri-food, retail sectors, and more. Furthermore, the cultural and creative sector is in a strategic position to offer added value across industries.  For all these reasons, they represent one of the most rapidly expanding sectors in the global economy, creating sustainable jobs along the way. Culture-led development also includes a range of non-monetized benefits, such as greater social inclusiveness and rootedness, resilience, innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship for individuals and communities, and the use of local resources, skills, and knowledge.

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Discussant for the lecture will be CYA Trustee and alumna Elaine Papoulias (CYA ’91), Executive Director of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University.  Two members of CYA’s academic community, Athena Hadji and Antonios Giannopoulos, will participate during the Q&A session following Mr. Yatromanolakis’ remarks


G U E S T   S P E A K E R

Nicolas Yatromanolakis

Deputy Minister of Culture and Sports,

responsible for Contemporary Culture

Nicholas Yatromanolakis was appointed Deputy Minister of Culture and Sports, responsible for Contemporary Culture, in January 2021, while he had served as General Secretary of Contemporary Culture, since August 2019.  He holds a BA in Political Science & International Relations from Panteion University, Athens, and a Master in Public Policy from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government in the US.

Between January 2017 – July 2019 he served as Chief Marketing & Communication Officer of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center. He has served in various senior positions in Greek and multinational companies such as Microsoft, V+O Communication, S&B Industrial Minerals and Alpha TV, as well as at the Hellenic Foundation of European & Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) and Harvard University.  He’s also worked as an independent strategy, public affairs and communication consultant. His work has received several awards in Greece and abroad.  He was a founding member and a Steering Committee member of the Potami political party, as well as the party’s campaign manager for the 2014 European Parliament elections. In the January 2015 parliamentary elections he ranked second among the party’s candidates in the City of Athens district. He left Potami in 2016. He’s been active in the field of human rights, focusing on LGBTQI+ rights. He’s participated voluntarily in nonprofit organizations focusing on the social inclusion of vulnerable populations, as well as the mental and physical health of children.

He is a 2013 Marshall Memorial Fellow. In 2019 he was elected member of the Board of Directors of the Harvard Club of Greece.  He has edited several publications, including New Approaches to Balkan Studies, ed. Dimitris Keridis, Ellen Elias Bursac and Nicholas Yatromanolakis (Dulles, VA: Brassey’s 2003). He contributed to the World Economic Forum’s 2001 Global Competitiveness Report. He was the scientific editor of the Greek version of the NATO Handbook, and ELIAMEP’s occasional papers and publications editor in 1996-98.

D I S C U S S A N T

Elaine Papoulias

Executive Director of the Minda du Gunzburg Center

for European Studies, Harvard University

CYA Trustee & CYA Alumna ’91

Elaine Papoulias is the executive director of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University.  She received a BA from Wesleyan University and a MALD from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

From 1999-2012, Papoulias served at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) as Director of the Kokkalis Program on Southeastern and East-Central Europe, integrating this region into HKS academic and executive education programs, as well as co-curricular initiatives across the University.

In addition to her career in academia, Papoulias’ professional experiences include advisory, public affairs, communications and analytical work for government agencies, political candidates, grassroots campaigns, non-profit institutions as well as private companies across a multitude of sectors.  She currently serves on the boards of College Year in Athens (Greece); Navarino Network (Greece); Center for Openness and Dialogue (Albania); Intersection Centre for Science and Innovation (Serbia); and diaNEOsis (Greece). Her interests include democratization, politics and development in Southeastern Europe. She speaks Greek fluently and has a working knowledge of Persian.

Athena Hadji (Ph.D. Archaeology-Art History-Cultural Anthropology, UC Berkeley) and Antonios Giannopoulos (Ph.D. Marketing & Communication, MBA, Athens Univ. of Economics and Business),  are members of CYA’s academic community and teach CYA’s course “Sustainable Futures: Cultural Heritage and Tourism Management.”