Our Team

Close the Loop cooperates with internationally recognized scholars who combine extensive research and training experience with high-level consulting experience to a variety of public and private organizations. It also relies on a wide network of experienced collaborators for covering the special needs of organization.

Panagiotis Panagiotakopoulos

Managing Director

Environmental Engineer, Ph.D. (Heriot-Watt)
Adjunct Faculty, Graduate Programme "Systems Engineering and Management",
Democritus University of Thrace

Panagiotis (Panos) is the founder and managing director of Close the Loop. He has extensive scientific knowledge in the fields of Sustainability, Environmental Management, Corporate Social Responsibility, Ecolabel Strategies and Organizational Development, both from his postgraduate studies as an Environmental Engineer, and his research during his Ph.D. He has an extensive teaching experience on these fields both at an academic (Democritus University of Thrace and National Technical University of Athens) and a professional level, through the delivery of specialized seminars to numerous organizations and companies. His research and teaching experience has contributed to the provision of high-level specialized consulting services to various public and private organizations. He is Greece’s National Eco-Innovation Expert for OECD, member of the Scientific Committee of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies,  Associate of the Chamber of Environment and Sustainability and member of the Network of Project Managers in Greece.  Dr. P. Panagiotakopoulos has served as assessor of the IPMA International Project Excellence Award, while the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has assigned him as a Quality Control Consultant for its Certified Training Programs in Greece.

Irene Daskalakis

Business Development Director

MBA (Athens University of Economics and Business)

BBA (George Washington University) 

 

Irene Daskalakis is currently the Business Development Manager at Close the Loop.

She holds a Bachelor in Business Administration with a concentration in International Business from George Washington University in Washington, DC, USA and a Master in Business Administration with a concentration in International Business from the Athens University of Economics and Business. Irene has worked at the Global Programs and Partnerships Unit at the World Bank, where she was involved in the promotion of strategic partnerships with Foundations. She also worked at the European Commission Delegation in Tirana, Albania where she supported the involvement of Civil Society in Albania’s European Integration Process (political Unit) and executed a project in Public Internal Financial Control, in close consultation with the Albanian Ministry of Finance (operations Unit). In the area of Corporate Responsibility Management, Irene has active experience having implemented projects and workshops in Europe (Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Belgium, Luxemburg), in the Middle East (U.A.E, Saudi Arabia) and in the U.S.A. Project focus areas include the design of a Corporate Sustainability Strategy, implementation of Sustainability Assessments (based on the EFQM Framework for CSR, Corporate Responsibility Index) and creation of Sustainability Reports (based on the G3 Guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative, UN Global Compact Principles).

Demetrios Panagiotakopoulos

Sustainable Project Management Expert

Ph.D. (Cornell), BCE (The City College of NY)
Professor of Project and Environmental Management, Democritus University of Thrace
Vice President of the Project Management Association of Greece (National Member of IPMA)

Demetrios is the Director of the Laboratory of Project Management, School of Engineering, since 1977. He was also Assistant Professor (1972-76) and Associate Professor (1976-78) of Urban and Environmental Systems at McGill University, Canada. He has been a visiting Scholar or visiting Professor at MIT (1984), McMaster University (1996), and Baruch College of Management (1984). Demetrios has served as a consultant to Private and Public Enterprises. He is also a member of international scientific societies, a member of various national/ international committees on topics related with environmental management and sustainability and a member of the Scientific Board of the Chamber of Environment and Sustainability. Since 1972, he has organized and taught a variety of courses on topics such as Engineering Economics, Systems Engineering Principles, Solid Waste Management, Project Management, Engineering Economics and Project Management, Environmental Management, Construction Equipment and Management, Planning and Management of Engineering Projects and Management of Engineering Enterprises. He is author of more than 90 scientific papers and 6 books on topics such as Systems Methodologies, Engineering Economics, Project Management, Construction Management, Sustainable Management of Solid Waste, Decentralization and Productivity. His current research interests include the Sustainable performance of enterprises.

Trissevyene Yiannakopoulou

Life Cycle Assessment and Water Management Expert

BSc (Mc Gill University) Degree in Biology University of Athens, PhD (DuTh)

Associate Professor of Ecological Engineering,
Democritus University of Thrace

Trissevyene (Venny) is Associate Professor of Ecological Engineering in the Department of Civil Engineering, School of Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace (DUTh), Greece. Her research interests include aquatic ecology, waste water technology and life cycle assessment of products and services within the wider fields of integrated and sustainable water resources and environmental management.  Ms Yiannakopoulou has a BSc degree from McGill  Gill University, Montreal, Canada, a Degree in Biology from the University of Athens and a PhD degree from the Dept. of Civil Engineering (DUTh), University of Thrace. Since 1980 she has organized and taught courses such as Ecological Engineering, Water Resources Management, Water Quality and Physical, Chemical and Biological Processes of Water and Wastewater. She has been a visiting scholar at the Florida Institute of Technology in USA, the Institute of Food Research and the Institute of Freshwater Ecology in UK, and at the Universities of Guelph, Mc Master and University of Toronto in Canada. She is a member of the scientific Scientific committees Committees of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies and of the Chamber of Environment and Sustainability. She is the author of over 40 scientific articles and reviewer of prominent international journals, such as Water Research. She is the author of the book "Systems, Ecosystems and Sustainability. Phenomena of Thermodynamics and Self-organization in the Modern World", published in 2008, in which she uses the Systems Methodology and the theory of non-equilibrium Thermodynamics to interpret the current economic, social and ecological phenomena.

Personal Webpage.

Eleftheria Alexandri

Sustainable Construction Expert

Civil Engineer (National Technical University of Athens), MPhil (University of Cambridge), PhD (Cardiff University)

Eleftheria holds an MPhil degree from the University of Cambridge on “Environmental Design in Architecture” and a PhD from Cardiff University. She has studied civil engineering in the National Technical University of Athens. Since1997 she is involved in the energy efficiency of buildings, bioclimatic design and energy auditing, aiming at reducing the total energy consumption of buildings (including embodied energy) and their environmental footprint. Apart from energy, she is interested in the holistic approach of the environmental behaviour of buildings, emphasising on Life Cycle Analysis of construction and water saving techniques. She has developed models for the calculation of buildings’ thermal consumption, as well as models for the effect of various materials –especially vegetation– on the microclimate around the building and on the city mesoclimate. She has also worked on energy saving research projects. She teaches undergraduate courses on building materials, strength of materials and bioclimatic design, and she supervises postgraduate dissertations. She has made publications in international and national scientific magazines and conferences, and has been member of scientific committees of international scientific conferences.

Aggeliki Vasiliou

Water Footprint Expert

Chemical Engineer (University of Patras), MSc (National Technical University of Athens)

Aggeliki holds an MSc in Water Resources Science and Technology from the National Technical University of Athens and has studied Chemical Engineering at the University of Patras. Her research interests focus on holistic water management and water footprinting. Her MSc thesis was the design of the regional management system of water resources in Greece using the Viable System Model . She has worked at the Department of Environmental Studies of the Workers’ Housing Organisation, as a Wastewater Treatment Plant and Environmental Impact Studies expert. She was an intern at the Quality Assurance Department of the cement manufacturer TITAN S.A., doing product quality lab monitoring. She has also considerable experience in teaching and coaching undergraduate students.   She is currently enrolled at the Quality Assurance MSc program of the Hellenic Open University.