Michalis Stefanidis, a Greek expatriate entrepreneur with eight businesses in various countries and headquarters in Prague, Czech Republic, spoke on the radio program “Our Global Voice” on Voice of Greece, hosted by Dimitris Kontogiannis. He shared the story of his family and his own journey, from Greece and the Athens University of Economics and Business to the United States, and from there to Czech Republic and other Central European countries.
Mr. Stefanidis is the inventor of a global patent for automobile tires, adopted many years ago by major international tire manufacturers such as Goodyear and Michelin. He also owns a company that produces special bearings, engines, and other machinery that require no lubrication, with an impressive clientele of leading global industrial corporations and organizations such as NASA. When asked whether he had ever tried to set up a manufacturing business in Greece, he explained that in 2004 he attempted, in collaboration with the Public Power Corporation, to establish a wind turbine assembly plant in Volos, with many components – towers, blades, and so on – to be produced in Greece. The project, however, did not come to fruition due to opposition from vested interests, without him going into further detail.