Highlighting Koroni’s competitive advantages: Hay Group’s “Tomorrow’s leaders” course

The Maniatakeion Foundation in collaboration with the global management consultancy firm, Hay Group, is holding a course entitled “Tomorrow’s leaders” from Monday 15 to Sunday 21 March 2010 in Koroni, Prefecture of Messinia. The course is supported by the companies A.B. Vasilopoulos, Athens Brewery, Piraeus Bank and Titan. The business coaches drawn from the corporate supporters taking part in this Maniatakeion Foundation-supported project are Panagiotis Tselikoglou, A.B Vasilopoulos’ Project Director, and Eleni Primikiri, Asst. Manager of Piraeus Bank's Green Banking Operations Development Division.

The course is designed to identify principled young people with a strong social commitment and to help them develop and grow into leaders with a strong focus on and awareness of corporate social responsibility issues. The course primarily entails highlighting the comparative advantages of various areas and examining the business and social development issues of concern to organisations and institutions that exert major influence in society.

The course is a follow-up to the 1^st International Conference on ‘Historic Memory & Economic Growth’ organised by the Maniatakeion Foundation with the support of the Hellenic Parliament, and the collaboration of the Embassies of Italy and France in Greece from 2 to 5 July 2009 which was held in both Athens and Koroni.

9 postgraduate students from the Athens Economic University, the University of Piraeus, the National Technical University of Athens, the University of the Aegean and the University of Patra selected by Hay Group, which specialises in scouting top executives, are to visit Koroni from 15 to 21 March. During their stay they will collect data about the area, will examine how to develop Koroni and the wider area from a business viewpoint, and will present their business plan at the end of the week.

The course coordinator and director is the economist Thanos Niforos. The course is also being attended by the Chairman of the Maniatakeion Foundation, Dimitris Maniatakis, archaeology professor Giannis Poulios, University of Bologna Venetian history professor and advisor to the Italian Ministry of Culture, Andrea Nanetti, Athens Economic University professor Panagiotis Mourdoukoutas, and architects Angelos Nakassis and Loukas Patis. Hay Group’s Managing Director, Kris Amiralis and business consultants Panagiota Theodorou, Theodoros Tsamourtzis and Michel Barth will also be present.

Assistance will be provided to the team of postgraduate students in the form of interviews with representatives of local governmental, social, business, and historical-archaeological players such as the Prefectural Authority of Messinia, the Municipality of Koroni, the Messinia Chamber of Commerce, the Messinia Development Company, the Messinia Association of Agricultural Cooperatives, Costa Navarino, SYKIKI Central Fig & Nut Cooperatives Association, and others. It is against this background, that the Deputy Prefect of Messinia, Dimitris Kafantaris, will go to Koroni today to talk to the postgraduate students about the area’s potential for tourism and economic growth. Today’s tour of Koroni Castle was given by the archaeologist, Niovi Bouza, from the 26^th Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities while the tour of the Messinia Archaeological Museum tomorrow, Tuesday 16 March, will be given by Dr. Xenia Arapogianni, an archaeologist from the 7^th Ephorate of Antiquities.

The course goes hand-in-hand with the open competition the Maniatakeion Foundation has announced to select a well-rounded proposal to unify the archaeological, historical, religious and tourist sites of Koroni into a unified Cultural Park.