Ioanna Sapfo Pepelasis (Born in the USA), a graduate of Harvard and the London School of Economics, is Professor Emerita in the Department of Economics at the Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB), where she teaches the course ENTREPRENEURSHIP. She has co-edited Diaspora Entrepreneurial Networks: Four Centuries of History, (Berg, 2005), Entrepreneurship in Theory and History (Palgrave, Macmillan 2005) and Country Studies in Entrepreneurship – A Historical Perspective (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). She has published articles –on diverse aspects of economic history and the history of enterprise/entrepreneurship of the Diaspora and Greece (18th -21st centuries)- in several international edited volumes and prestigious international refereed journals, among them: Business History, Business History Review, Financial History Review, Journal of European Economic History, Journal of Applied Economics, Managerial and Decision Economics. She received in 2003 a prize from the Ottoman Bank Archive for an article on Greek Diaspora Bankers. She is a member of the Editorial Board of Business History and has been a referee for the aforementioned and other journals, as well as for Routledge and Oxford Bibliographies. She participated in the first MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) in Greece: ‘Entrepreneurship Beyond Silicon Valley: The Greek story’.
She heads the following two research projects at the department of economics at AUEB: ‘Mapping of the startup ecosystem in Athens during the recent economic crisis years’ (which is included among the activities of EMOP (Economic Policy Lab)
and ‘Entrepreneurial history and History of Institutions’. With her initiative and supervision a team of undergraduate, post graduate and young alumni of AUEB have created the largest historical data base in these areas. She has also acted as Scientific Coordinator for the Project of diaNEOsis on the Charting of the Greek Startup ecosystem (January 2021).
She has also served as a member of: the Councils of The European Business History Association and the European Association of Evolutionary Political Economy. In addition, she has also served on the Board of Directors of the Greek Center for Planning and Economic Research and the National School of Dance.
She was the initiator and Co-founder of TAKEOFFGREECE , an initiative for the support of 40+/60+ start-uppers in Greece that undertook mentoring and workshops (2015-2018). She is also a collaborator and mentor at ACEin (AUEB) and a member
of the Senior Advisory Board of Fashion Revolution Greece.
She is a Research Fellow of EMOP and Senior Research Fellow at ELIAMEP (Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy) specializing on the Diaspora and Entrepreneurship. Her current research, writing (both academic and for the Greek press) and public speaking focuses on analyzing diverse facets of the history of the Greek corporate sector and the evolution of the Greek startup ecosystem.