PRESS RELEASE
Women Entrepreneurship
Thursday 21 November 2013 19:00
New Town Hall, Thessaloniki
Elena Panaritis @
Economist, Impact Investor, Social Entrepreneur, Policy Innovator
Founder & CEO of www.thoughtforaction.org
participates in open dialogue about women entrepreneurship
As part of Global Entrepreneurship Week 2013, Elena Panaritis, impact investor, specialized in policy innovation, is invited to share her knowledge and experience about women entrepreneurship in an open dialogue which is organized by the British Council in collaboration with the Municipality of Thessaloniki and Europe Direct. The British Graduates Society has been invited to present their new nationwide research on women entrepreneurship in Greece.
The presentation will be followed by a public discussion with the participation of:
· Elena Panaritis, Policy Innovator, Economist and Social Entrepreneur
· Marina Ofloudis Giavroglou, Soya Mills Group
· Nonita Papadopoulou Nonita, P.A.P. Corp.
· Katerina Sarri, School of Business Adminstration, University of Macedonia
The event will be facilitated by journalist Paschos Mandravelis.
Elena Panaritis as an institutional economist and impact investor, specialised in social entrepreneurship and innovation policies is invited to talk about the prospects of women entrepreneurship in Greece.
Until recently she served as a special economics advisor to the Greek Prime Minister
and as a Member of Parliament of Greece. In more than a decade as an economist at
the World Bank, Elena spearheaded institutional/structural changes including property
rights reform in Peru that received International Best Practice and Innovation
awards (over 10Million are the beneficiaries). Elena’s reform methods have
revolutionized and forever changed the way people and policymakers think about
structural changes; and specifically about property rights and informality. As an
institutional economist she pioneered social entrepreneurship, she is renowned for her
success in transforming informal markets (by changing property rights) into vibrant,
growing formal economic and social entities. Her book Prosperity Unbound:
Building Property Markets with Trust (Palgrave Macmillan) recounts her experience
and expands on her methodology- “Reality Check Analysis”, which is considered
one of the best practical applications of institutional economics to property rights
issues. Robert Litan, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute and Vice President for
Research and Policy at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of Entrepreneurship
calls her work “a real contribution.”
She is the founder of Panel Group, a triple-bottom-line business that focuses in
distressed cities and markets with high level of informality. Panel Group also provides
counsel to governments and private sector on how to apply structural reforms and
changes to transform illiquid assets (property) and turn markets more efficient and
productive. She has also founded Thought for Action, an educational foundation to
create awareness about transforming informality and countries under solvency crisis
like Greece. Elena Panaritis has taught economic development, housing finance and
property markets reform courses at the Wharton Business School, University of
Pennsylvania, INSEAD, and the Johns Hopkins University- School of Advanced
International Studies (SAIS). She blogs at: www.prosperityunbound.com
