A lot of important ‘gifts’ were opened at ELSET’s ‘birthday’.
On Friday 29/09/2023, at Porto Palace hotel in Thessaloniki, labellers, suppliers, partners and friends of the Association gathered to celebrate the tenth anniversary of its creation, in 2013.
The most important ‘gift’ was that the event started with a reference to the flood victims of Thessaly. The President of the Administrative Council, Mr Avg. Chatzichrysos, opened his speech by reminding that ELSET has taken on the initiative to raise money for the victims and said that the Association has already contacted Humanity, a humanitarian organisation, which will buy the essentials that these people need and will hand them out. As there is no much time, money will be raised until Thursday 5/10, and they will be given to Humanity on Friday 6/10. There will be detailed announcements about the raised sum, the items bought and related topics.
Another ‘gift’ is the silicone paper issue. As is known, the issue ‘froze’ in the summer after the recycling plant in Germany closed. But now a recycling plant is being built in Greece, which greatly simplifies the issue of transport. As the plant under construction is in Thessaly, it was affected by the floods. This postpones its start of operation, but it does not cancel it.
Afterwards, sponsors presented the products they sell in the market.
Two very large ‘gifts’ for everyone were the talks by two invited professors.
Dr. Giannis Tzavlopoulos, CEO of UPGRADE, a consulting company, talked about the importance of values, culture and leadership for today’s businesses.
In particular, he described the methodology they use as a consulting company to develop the skills of executives and business owners.
He also highlighted the importance of motivation, through which a leader constantly improves the ‘maturity’ of his colleagues and thus implements a more and more participative style of management.
In this case, he achieves maximum performance along with satisfaction and commitment on the part of his colleagues.
He likened business culture to a tree whose roots are a company’s fundamental Values and Mission. Operation Principles are its trunk, Culture are its branches and Results are its fruits.
Finally, Dr. Giannis Tzavlopoulos underlined the weight of education in the 41th industrial revolution, saying that it is no longer a luxury nor an option. It is a pressing need for surviving in the market. He also made self-criticism as a professor on the method and the content of teaching, saying that it is not possible for 20th century professors to teach 21th century students 19th century educational content.
Dr. Ch. Georgiou spoke about family business succession.
‘Only by quantifying the issue of succession, i.e. the transfer of leadership of a family business to the next generation, one can solve it.’ This was the main point of the talk by Dr Christos E. Georgiou, General Director of the Research Institute of the Federation of Industries of Greece and author of the practical guide ‘Preparing Succession’ (original title: ‘Προετοιμάζοντας τη διαδοχή’) published by 4D.
Regarding the implementation of a correct succession process, Dr Georgiou and his mentor, the unforgettable Greek-American professor of Management, Asterios G. Kefalas, have developed a relevant scientific methodology, which has been successfully applied to more than 30 family businesses in Greece and Cyprus. In fact, in order to raise awareness among members of business-owning families, Dr Georgiou offers FREE, privacy-respecting, no-obligation diagnostic surveys that measure the ‘health’ of family businesses and quantify the issue of succession.
In his talk, Dr. Georgiou stressed how important it is for the family to establish written rules early on, in order to avoid present and future conflict. Moreover, analysing the four-element model of ‘Creation, Management, Succession, Perpetuation’, which Prof. Kefalas and he have created, he said that everyone should understand that succession is not a one-off event but a long-term process. That’s why he suggested to founders and future successors of family businesses to begin the succession process as early as possible with the engagement of all family members.
What was very important is that this event was attended by two generations, sitting side by side. The previous one, which is about to hand over, and the next one, which is about to take over.
Each business representative received two books written by the speakers on the topics they talked about.
ELSET’s Administrative Council feels the need to thank the sponsor companies that contributed to making this event happen.
Member sponsors were Loxas, Heidelberg, Lino, 3 print, Novacel, Omnicom, bel, and FlexoplatesPapadopoulos, while non-member sponsors were UPM Raflatac, Koretsis, Hellenic Recycling Agency and Praxi. Thanks also go out to NIKOLAOU FLEXOPLATES for creating the visual that was shown during the event and became the… sweet cover of the anniversary cake after dinner.
Athens, 04/10/2023
The Administrative Council
Image Gallery
https://www.elset.gr/en/events/celebrating-elset-s-10th-anniversary#sigProIda02d585063
