Alexandra Mitsotaki

Alexandra Mitsotaki Gourdain is a Greek social activist. She founded ActionAid Hellas[1] in 1998 and serves as its chair. In this capacity, in 2014 she co-founded Greece's first microcredit institution, Action Finance Initiative (AFI).[2] In 2009 she became director of the Greek Cultural Centre in Paris.[3]

Early life

Mitsotaki was born in 1956 in Athens to Greece's future Prime Minister Konstantinos Mitsotakis and his wife Marika. Her adolescence was marked by her father's imprisonment in 1967 at the hands of the Greek military junta, and her family's subsequent house arrest until they managed to leave Greece in 1968. She subsequently lived in exile in Paris together with her parents and three siblings (Dora, Katerina and Kyriakos) until they were able to return to Greece in 1974, following the restoration of democracy.

After finishing her German Abitur (secondary-school diploma) in Athens, Alexandra earned her university degree in political science at the Institute of Political Studies ("Sciences Po") in Paris.[4] She holds a master's degree in development law from the University of Paris V.

Career

Her professional life began at the OECD in Paris,[5] where she worked in the Education Directorate and the Development Centre. Her work sought to deepen policy makers’ understanding of the challenges of development and fighting poverty.

In 1998 Mitsotaki created Greece's first international development NGO, ActionAid Hellas (AAH). She has chaired AAH since 2007.

Mitsotaki was a member of the board of ActionAid International (AAI) from 2003 to 2015.[6] She served on AAI board committees Governance and Board Development Committee, and the Finance and Funding Committee.

Realizing the importance of helping Greece's increasingly vulnerable population since the economic crisis, in 2014 she and AAH working in partnership with the French NGO Adie France (Association pour le droit à l'initiative économique) and created Greece's first micro-credit institution: Action Finance Initiative (AFI).[7]

In 2009, she became chair of the Greek Cultural Centre (CCH) in Paris.[3][8]

Mitsotaki teaches a course with American economist Charles P. Oman on the political economy of international development at Sciences Po in Paris.

Personal life

In 1979 Mitsotaki married French lawyer Pascal Gourdain, with whom she has four children – Nicolas (1981), Pierre (1983), Christina (1985) and Jean (1995) – and four grandchildren.

Based in Paris, she spends much time in Greece and maintains close ties to her sisters Dora and Katerina, her brother Kyriakos who in July 2019 became Prime Minister of Greece, and other members of her Greek family. Before her mother died in 2012, Mitsotaki organized the production and publication of her mother's book Recipes of Love.[9]

In addition to Greek, she speaks fluent German, French and English.

Notes and references
  1. "ΑctionAid | Μαζί, κατά της Φτώχειας και της Aδικίας". Actionaid.gr. 2016-02-18. Retrieved 2016-04-21.
  2. "Action Finance Initiative". Afi.org.gr. Retrieved 2016-04-21.
  3. "Centre Culturel Hellenique". Cchel.org. Retrieved 2016-04-21.
  4. "Accueil | Sciences Po". Sciencespo.fr. 2016-04-14. Retrieved 2016-04-21.
  5. "OECD.org". OECD. Retrieved 2016-04-21.
  6. 21 hours 4 min ago. "International". ActionAid. Retrieved 2016-04-21.
  7. Le microcrédit pour créer sa boîte (2016-03-31). "Adie, le microcrédit pour créer sa boîte". Adie.org (in French). Retrieved 2016-04-21.
  8. Founded in 1975, the Greek Cultural Centre in Paris was on the verge of closing down in 2010, due both to the lack of a successor to be President and to a drastic decline in resources and membership over the preceding years. Alexandra accepted to take on the challenge of reviving the Centre. Thanks to her action, the Centre, although an NGO, now officially represents Greece in the Forum of Foreign Cultural Institutes in Paris (FICEP) and is the official cultural partner of the Greek Embassy in France. The Centre is at the heart of numerous cultural events in France and Greece, acting as a Greek cultural reference in the francophone world.
  9. "How Alexandra Mitsotakis Created Recipes of Love | GQS". Gqs.gr. 2015-08-17. Retrieved 2016-04-21.
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