Governance

We are governed by a set of Rules, which set out our purpose and procedures.  We have been led by a Council of Trustees and eminent Chairmen since our inception.  Current Chairman, Dr John Kittmer, is a writer and former British Ambassador to Greece.

Council of the League

Chair
John Kittmer

John Kittmer has been Chair of the Council of the League since June 2018 and a trustee since 2017. By profession he was a civil servant and diplomat, working in several Government departments. From January 2013-December 2016, he was British Ambassador to Greece. He has degrees in classics and modern Greek, and holds a prize-winning doctorate on the poet Yannis Ritsos. He is currently working on book projects on Ritsos and C.P. Cavafy.

Vice-Chair
Roula Konzotis

Roula Konzotis has been Vice-Chair of the Council of the League since 2021 and a trustee since 2019.  She has occupied a number of senior management positions in the arts and architecture, latterly as Director of Communications at The Royal Institute of British Architects. She has worked extensively with government on various committees and is a Fellow of The Royal Society of the Arts.  

Treasurer
Konstantinos Dagklis

Konstantinos Dagklis is an economist and has been the League’s Treasurer since February 2023.

Membership Secretary Dimitris Loumanis

Dimitris Loumanis is a Chartered Engineer, educated in Greece and the UK, and has been the League’s Membership Secretary since September 2023. During his time at Brunel University, he was actively involved with its Hellenic Society, promoting friendship and cultural awareness between Greek and British students. He works in Infrastructure and Development programmes in the UK and abroad, while also volunteering for the Institute of Engineering & Technology (IET).

Runciman Administrator
Jonathan Williams

Jonathan Williams read Classics at University College Oxford and wrote a doctorate on ancient Roman history, which made extensive use of Greek literary sources. He was Roman coin curator, head of the Prehistory and Europe department and, lastly, Deputy Director at the British Museum. He is a fellow of the Learned Society of Wales, the Society of Antiquaries of London, and the Royal Historical Society, holds an honorary doctorate from Kingston University, and is currently reading through the Septuagint. He has been the Runciman Administrator since October 2024.

Chair-designate
Kevin Featherstone

Kevin Featherstone is Professorial Research Fellow and, until summer 2024, was Director of the Hellenic Observatory at the London School of Economics.  In 2021, he was bestowed the award of 'Grand Commander, Order of the Phoenix' of the Hellenic Republic, and the following year was granted honorary citizenship of Greece. He is chair-designate of the Council and will take over as chair from 1 January 2025.

Ioannes Chountis de Fabbri

Ioannes Chountis de Fabbri is a Parliamentary Researcher in the House of Lords and a PhD candidate in Intellectual History at the University of Aberdeen; his research focuses on Edmund Burke and eighteenth-century history of ideas. He has previously worked as a political adviser in the Hellenic Parliament and the Council of Europe. Ioannes is a regular contributor to the English edition of Kathimerini where he writes about Greek-British relations and to The London Magazine.

Isabelle Clark

Isabelle Clark read Classics at Magdalen College Oxford. After completing her DPhil in Oxford, she retrained in accountancy.  In 2003, she joined the wine trade and co-founded a specialist import and distribution business working with small independent producers in Europe and particularly in Greece.  She continues to combine a love of Ancient Greek literature and good wine.  

Michael Cottakis

Michael Cottakis is CEO of 89 Global, a public sector advisory firm which supplies strategic, policy, and operational advice to governments around the world. Michael is an economic historian of the Eastern Mediterranean. In 2023, he obtained a PhD from the LSE European Institute, concentrating on the business history of Thessaloniki and Izmir during the 19th and 20th centuries. His research interests include the business, trade, and investment patterns of the Late Ottoman Empire, with a specific focus on port cities.

Spyros Economides

Spyros Economides is Associate Professor in International Relations and European Politics at the LSE and Deputy Director of its the Hellenic Observatory. He has a B.Soc.Sci from the University of Birmingham and an MSc and PhD from the LSE, where he also received the Robert Mackenzie Prize for his doctoral dissertation on the ‘International Implications of the Greek Civil War’. He has published widely on Greek foreign policy; the external relations, security and defence policies of the EU; Europeanisation and foreign policy; EU enlargement and the EU’s relationship with the Western Balkans.

Natasha (Anastasia Aglaia) Lemos

Natasha (Anastasia Aglaia) Lemos was brought up in Athens where her first degree was in law. Latterly she obtained a PhD at SOAS for a thesis on the literatures of Greece and Turkey inspired by the war of 1919-1922 and the subsequent exchange of populations. She is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Hellenic Studies at King’s College, London, a member of the Executive Board of the Hellenic Centre in London and of the Board of Overseers of the Gennadius Library in Athens.

Louisa Leventis

Louisa Leventis read English and Modern Greek at St Peter’s College, Oxford, and Museum Studies at the Institute of Archaeology UCL. Since 2002 she has been the Executive director of the A.G. Leventis Foundation, supporting educational, cultural, artistic and philanthropic causes in Cyprus, Greece and elsewhere. She is a member of the Provost’s Council at Trinity College Dublin and the Steering Group of the Hellenic Institute at Royal Holloway, as well as Jury member of the Art Museum Award of the EMA. 

Yannis Manuelides

Yannis Manuelides runs his own consultancy following his retirement as a partner from Allen & Overy’s London office after 32 years of practice, six of which were spent in France.  A graduate of Princeton University (AB Philosophy, 1980), University of Chicago (MA Philosophy, 1983) and Cambridge University (BA Law 1985), he is an English law qualified lawyer and former member of the Paris Bar.  Yannis serves on the board of a few other charities.

Ikaros Matsoukas

Ikaros Matsoukas is a financial technology professional, currently working as a director at Deloitte UK. Born and raised in Athens, he made London his home in 2012. Outside the professional sphere, and when he leaves his office in the City, Ikaros finds refuge in history books and art.

Anne McCabe 

Anne McCabe has worked on Byzantine texts on horse-care and agriculture, and on archaeological projects in Greece, Turkey, and Syria. She has a DPhil in classical languages and literature from the University of Oxford and is Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents, Oxford. 

Kate Smith 

Kate Smith has lived in Greece for a total of eight years, on two diplomatic postings at the British Embassy Athens, thirty years apart.  She was HM Ambassador to Greece from 2017-2021.  Other diplomatic postings have included the UK Mission to the UN in New York and Tehran.  She has also worked in the private sector, at Shell from 2008-12 and currently at UK defence company Babcock International.  Kate is a fluent Greek speaker and a member of Council of the British School at Athens.

Gonda Van Steen 

Gonda Van Steen holds the Koraes Chair of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature in the Department of Classics at King’s College London. She is the author of many articles and five books: Venom in Verse: Aristophanes in Modern Greece; Liberating Hellenism from the Ottoman Empire; Theatre of the Condemned: Classical Tragedy on Greek Prison Islands; Stage of Emergency: Theater and Public Performance under the Greek Military Dictatorship of 1967-1974; and Adoption, Memory, and Cold War Greece.

Council Representatives in greece

Marcel Cremer 

Marcel Cremer is an Attorney-at-law and accredited mediator. His main areas of expertise are corporate law, contracts, and real estate and he advises local and foreign legal entities conducting business in Greece. He has been instrumental in building the startup ecosystem in Greece through his work as lawyer but also as a mentor and coach of young entrepreneurs. He is a 2023 German Marshall Fund Memorial Fellow. He is fluent in English, French and Italian and has basic communicational skills in Spanish.

Natalia Kokotos

Natalia Kokotos studied Architecture at the Architectural Association in London.  She worked as an architect in New Delhi and London and continues to run her private practice in Greece. In 2016 she set up a permaculture farm on the outskirts of Athens where she also runs a forest school.

Michael E. Tzartzouras

Michael E. Tzartzouras read Law at Trinity College, Cambridge and Paris II (Panthéon-Assas). He is an Athens-based corporate lawyer with over 20 years’ experience, including two years in New York. Since 2012, he has been the General Counsel of TEMES, whose flagship development is Costa Navarino in the Peloponnese. He is also a director of Faliro House, a film production company active in Greece and internationally. He regularly advises Greek charitable foundations and non-profit organisations, including Oxbelly which serves independent filmmakers.