Dimitris Giannakopoulos

Dimitrios Pavlos Giannakopoulos (alternate spelling: Dimitris Giannacopoulos, Greek: Δημήτρης Παύλος Γιαννακόπουλος) (born on June 22, 1974, Athens) is a Greek businessman and pharmaceutical manufacturer. He is the president of the board and chief executive officer of Vianex, owner of Panathinaikos B.C. as well as owner of 50% of the company Superfoods SA, among many other activities.

Biography Dimitris Giannakopoulos was born in Athens. He is the only son of Pavlos Giannakopoulos, who was the founder of Vianex, the largest Greek pharmaceutical company.

On the side of his father, he is originally from Sellasia, Laconia.

In 2004, Giannakopoulos became the first vice president, and in January 2012 he became deputy chief executive officer of Vianex. In 2019, he was appointed president of the board of directors and chief executive officer of Vianex.

The 2019 turnover of Vianex Group was 301.3 million euros.

Superfoods

In 2016 Giannakopoulos Group and Papazoglou Group each acquired a 50% stake of Superfoods, a Greek company of food supplements and natural health products.

Social profile Giannakopoulos is the president of the Pavlos Giannakopoulos Foundation (Ίδρυμα Παύλος Γιαννακόπουλος) which is a charitable organisation named after his father Pavlos Giannakopoulos. This organisation financially supports students, has programs against poverty, provides funding to the healthcare industry and to environmental projects, and strives to make education more accessible and to preserve Greek culture.

Giannakopoulos has been an active political voice in the Greek Parliament representing his pharmaceutical company Vianex while also being active on the global pharmaceutical industry stage.

Giannakopoulos is also active in social media posting regularly about his team Panathinaikos B.C. and Vianex.

Controversies Giannakopoulos has often caused incidents and in his statements he has characterized himself as the "inventor of vagrancy".

In the spring of 1999, he barged into Panathinaikos' locker room after a loss in a game against Olympiakos and provoked the team's head coach Lefteris Subotic, as a result of which the team's centre Dino Radja physically accosted Giannakopoulos.

In April 2011, together with his bodyguards, he invaded the offices of the gazzetta.gr website and threatened its employees and their families. The reason was that the news website allowed the publishing of comments on its articles that he considered slanderous about him.

In 2016, in the OAKA locker room, he insulted Vassilis Spanoulis by wishing his son to die and was forced to apologize afterwards.

In January 2019 he offered €10,000 for information about an Olympiakos fan who had spat at him during a basketball game.

In June 2020, he vandalized a Panathinaikos supporter's kebab shop. In retaliation, a group of about 100 Panathinaikos supporters attacked his house with stones, paint and insults. He later resigned as president of Panathinaikos A.O..

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Giannakopoulos held a hard sceptical stance against vaccinations, claiming that his DNA identity would be altered if he received one. He had also insulted people trying to forcefully change the mind of those resisting to receive a vaccine.