The following members of the Value Investing Community serve as the Advisory Board for the Ben Graham Centre for Value Investing (Europe).

athanassakos

George Athanassakos

Advisory Board Chair
Founder & Managing Director, Ben Graham Centre for Value Investing, Ivey Business School, Western University
Founder & Director Greek Centre for Value Investing & Visiting Professor National and Kapodistrain University of Athens
Founder & Director of Center for the Advancement of Value Investing Education

Read Dr. George Athanassakos’ Bio

José Luis Jiménez Guajardo-Fajardo

José Luis Jiménez Guajardo-Fajardo

Chief Investment Officer, MAPFRE

Mr. Guajardo-Fajardo was born in Madrid in 1968 and is an Economics graduate from the Universidad Complutense. He has a diploma from the London School of Economics and attended the Global Senior Management Programme (GSMP) at the IE Business School and Chicago Graduate School of Business. Finally, he attended also the Oxford Strategic Leadership Programme at Oxford Said Business School. Jose Luis began his professional career as an economist in the Research Department of Caja Madrid before joining Skandia Vida as a Chief Economist. He later became Chief Investment Officer at Skandia Link in the European and Latin America Division- first in Madrid and then in Paris. Finally, he became Head of Asset Allocation at Skandia Investment Group – Skandia’s global investment arm – based in the United Kingdom. José Luis joined March A.M., the boutique asset manager of Banca March, as CEO in 2009 returning to Spain. Finally, he moved to MAPFRE as Chief Investment Officer in September 2015, where he is in charge of the Investment Unit. Founder and Chairman of the Group of Boutique Asset Managers (GBAM): an international network of specialized asset managers with more than 17 members Worldwide. José Luis Jiménez has combined his professional work with lecturing in Macroeconomics at the IE Business School.

Fokion Karavias

Fokion Karavias

Chief Executive Officer, Eurobank S.A.

Mr. Fokion Karavias holds the position of Chief Executive Officer at Eurobank and he is Member of the Board of Directors. He has served at Eurobank as Senior General Manager, Head of Group Corporate and Investment Banking, Capital Markets & Wealth Management and member of the Executive Committee (2014 – 2015), General Manager and member of the Executive Committee (2005 – 2013), Deputy General Manager and Treasurer (2002 -2005). He started his career in banking in 1991, at JP Morgan, in New York, in the market risk management division. In 1994, he joined Citibank, in Athens, responsible for derivatives and fixed income business in Greece. In 1997, he joined Eurobank, as head of fixed income and derivatives trading. In 2000, he became Treasurer at Telesis Investment Bank. He is also Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Eurobank Holdings and Member of the Board of Directors of Eurobank Private Bank Luxembourg S.A. He holds a Diploma in Chemical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, a Master’s and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. He has published several papers on topics concerning his academic research. He was born in Athens in 1964.

Thomas Konstantinidis

Thomas Konstantinidis

Chief Investment Officer, Allianz European Reliance, Athens, Greece

Mr. Konstantinidis is the Chief Investment Officer and a member of the Executive Committee at Allianz European Reliance Insurance, a subsidiary of Allianz. He also chairs FICO, the investment committee of Allianz European Reliance Insurance, and leads the Board of Directors for Allianz Asset Management, a subsidiary asset management company. From 2005 to 2023, he was the CEO and CIO of European Reliance Asset Management, where he also chaired the Investment Committee of European Reliance Insurance. Additionally, he served on the board of Alter Ego, a facility management company and subsidiary of the insurance group. Mr. Konstantinidis holds a B.Sc. in Business Administration from Boston University School of Management, graduating Magna Cum Laude. He also earned an M.Sc. in Finance from Boston College’s Carroll Graduate School of Management and an Executive M.B.A. from London Business School

Paul Lountzis

Paul Lountzis

Founder, Lountzis Asset Management LLC

Mr. Lountzis is the President of Lountzis Asset Management, LLC, which he founded in 2000 and is based in Wyomissing, PA. Paul is a graduate of Albright College. He has more than twenty-five years, experience in the investment industry, beginning his career in 1989 with Royce & Associates, a New York City-based investment advisory firm managing the Royce Mutual funds. Paul spent nine years, including five years as a partner, at Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb Inc., an investment advisory firm managing more than $9 billion, including the Sequoia Mutual Fund. At Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb, Bill Ruane assigned him to conduct a number of specific research projects for the consideration of Warren E. Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.

Richard Oldfield

Richard Oldfield

Chairman, Oldfield Partners LLP

Mr. Oldfield is Chairman of a boutique investment management firm, Oldfield Partners LLP. He is also a Trustee of the Prince’s Trust and Canterbury Cathedral Trust and president of Demelza House Children’s Hospice. Between 2007 and 2014, he was Chairman of Oxford University Endowment Management Ltd. and Oxford University investment committee. He is the author of the book Simple But Not Easy, a book about investing published in June 2007 with a second edition in 2021.

Francisco García Paramés

Francisco García Paramés

Chairman, Chief Investment Officer, Cobas Asset Management

Mr. Paramés was born in 1963 in El Ferrol, Spain. After graduating in Economics, he took an MBA at the IESE business school. A voracious reader, he gets through books as briskly, it seems, as his long daily walks. He is also a keen swimmer, and sometimes plays golf. His track record of 25 years near the top of performance rankings make him one of Europe’s leading asset managers in the “value” school. He is a self-taught follower of Warren Buffett’s investment approach. His asset management style is based on strictly applying the principles of value investing (Graham, Buffett, Peter Lynch, etc.), within the framework of the Austrian business cycle theory. He is the author of Invirtiendo a largo plazo (Investing for the long term), a book in which he explains the underpinnings of his own investment approach and experience.

Guy Spier

Guy Spier

Founder and Managing Partner, Aqua Marine Capital

Mr. Spier is the founder and managing partner of Aquamarine Capital, an investment partnership styled after the original 1950’s Buffett partnerships. In 2008 Guy, along with Mohnish Pabrai, had lunch with Warren Buffett after submitting the winning bid for Buffett’s annual Glide charity auction. Guy completed his undergraduate studies at Oxford and earned an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Goran Vasiljievic

Goran Vasiljevic

Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer, Lingohr & Partner Asset Management GmbH

Mr. Vasiljevic is the CIO and Speaker of the Management Board (CEO) at Lingohr & Partner Asset Management GmbH in Germany. In his capacity he is responsibility for the strategic outlook of the company, monitoring the implementation of the company’s investment philosophy as well as leading the portfolio management. The company’s main focus is to identify undervalued companies as a result of human misjudgement. The identification of undervalued companies is a result of a systematic screen and a human overlay. Thereby the process is combining the best of two worlds – the man & machine. Mr. Vasiljevic and his team is consistently driving research and developing new sophisticated methods of research while relying on “old” fundamental insights from Ben Graham and other Value Investing great. The implementation of the disciplined approach is as team approach. Currently, the company manages over 2 Billion USD in a wide variety of different strategies across the globe in the large and small cap space. Mr. Vasiljevic holds B.A. and a Masters in Finance from Tulane University. Prior to joining Lingohr & Partner in 2011 he held positions on the sell side at Roth Capital Partners and worked in M&A advisory at FMV Opinions. He is a passionate learner and value investor and therefore active in frequent speaking engagements and publishes Value Insights on a regular basis.

We would like to thank Eurobank S.A. and Eurolife  FFH for their generous support that allowed the establishment of the Greek Centre for Value Investing and for supporting the centre’s activities.