Tom Edwards guides us through a curated selection of highlights from 2020’s impressive catalogue of interviews. From CEOs to city mayors, presidents and beyond, Monocle’s Tyler Brûlé sat down with those at the top to talk leadership and strategy in a year like no other. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Hello and welcome to a special edition of the Chiefs on Monocle 24 with me, Tom Edwards.
As 2020 draws to a close, from city mayors to those at the helm of investment banks, international art fairs, national broadsheets and beyond, we're looking back through our impressive catalogue of business leaders to bring you a curated selection of highlights from a year quite unlike any other.
In our first special program, we heard highlights from our first season, plenty of those leaders who were in the midst of the first wave of the pandemic, with little know how between them on how the year would pan out.
For our next special and our next series, we go back as summer turned to autumn, when there was a little more clarity on how different businesses and business leaders would approach the uncertainty with a more long term view.
So to kick off today's episode, we'll turn to one man leading an eastern Mediterranean hub on the rise.
Costas Bakuianes has only been mayor of Athens since June 2019, but has approached the position with a productive and positive outlook even in a difficult year, keeping urban transformation a top priority.
Here he is talking to Tyler Brule.
Athens has always been a magnet as long as it was properly on the map and people could find it.
So that is all clear.
I'm very interested, though, and certainly for the people listening to this program who are entrepreneurs and they're certainly curious in business.
Of course, if I bumped into you in Brussels or New York, if we could all get to New York at the moment, what would be the three or four elements that you would say to someone who wants to open up in Athens or certainly in Greece, in a broader sense, what are the tools available in terms of inward investment?
Of course, we saw the golden passport approach not just over in Portugal, we've seen versions of that in Malta and elsewhere.
But what are those attractive elements that really you have at your disposal right now to of course, continue to stimulate the economy and of course, underline that optimistic note that you that you can ride at the moment.
I would mention two things.
Number one, there have been a number of reforms that have been taking place over the past few months and also over the past few years in battling bureaucracy and in making sure that we create a pro business environment.
Number two, there are a number of economic and financial incentives, tax incentives, et cetera, that are given by the Greek state as we speak.
But it's much more than that.
Athens as we speak, is a prime location.
Athens has, because of the crisis, the prices, actually the values have fallen over the past few years.
So now there is a great window of opportunity for someone to come and invest in the city, and especially since the city is actually transforming itself.