The Bodossaki Foundation

Restless and daring, versatile and extremely hardworking, a man with an entrepreneurial spirit and imagination, he was ahead of his time, as are all great visionaries and creators. From the age of 12 he was involved in business. At 17 he was one of the leading economic figures in the area, active in commerce and industry, first at Mersina and later in Constantinople. He lived through the drama of the Asia Minor Disaster and saw his enterprises destroyed. He did not lose heart, however. Undaunted, he continued his productive work in Greece, where he settled in 1923. Over the next three years he lost the vast fortune he had brought with him, but he started again from the beginning, with patience, persistence and diligence, during the interwar period. Ιn 1940 Bodossakis was at the head of a number of factories, which supplied Greece and its allies with military equipment. When the Germans entered Greece, Bodossakis left the country, avoiding any contact with the occupying forces. After the war, he was involved in numerous branches of industry, chiefly in exports, and he dominated the country's economy, employing a large percentage of its work force.

Bodossakis was quick to perceive that the future of the country was in industrialisation. For 55 crucial years his activities, which accounted for 35 percent of Greek industry, expanded into various sectors: munitions, (Greek Powder and Cartridge Company S.A. - PYR-ΚAL), textiles (Greek Woollen Mills Ltd.), wines and spirits (Greek Wines and Spirits Company ? BOTRYS), fertilizers (The Hellenic Chemical Products and Fertilizers Company Ltd. and Chemical Industries of Northem Greece S.A.), glassware manufacture (Hellenic OWENS Elefsis Glass Company S.A.), shipping (Prodromos Lines Ltd.), insurance (LΑΙΚΙ Insurance Company S.A.), construction (Τ.Ε.Ε.Ν. Ltd.), but chiefly minerals and mining (Κassandra Mines, Ermioni Mines, Lavrio Mining Company Ltd., Ptolemais Lignite Mines ? LIPTOL, General Mining and Metallurgical Company S.A. LARCO, Mining Company of Greece). Bodossakis was a great visionary of industrial development, at a time when Greece was in a state οf economic stagnation and under-unemployment was rife. His ambitious entrepreneurial initiatives made a decisive contribution toward restructuring the problematic economy, creating more than 15,000 new jobs.

Τhe secret οf the success of Bodossakis was his passion for creativity rather than money. He himself led a simple life, far from the social whirl, in the company of his wife, Ioanna. Τhe fact that he bequeathed all his fortune to the Bodossaki Foundation during his lifetime meant that his objective was to be creative, and to help the state and his fellow Greeks. His death on January 18, 1979 brought to a close a versatile, productive career. But the acts of charity he had carried out during all his long life are continued today by the Bodossaki Foundation, his last and most important "child", as he used to say, with a smile. He had also carried out a series of philanthropic projects, in the tradition of the nation's great benefactors, among whom modern history has rightly included him.

Ιn addition to his business activities, Bodossakis soon began making a series of donations. Before settling in Greece in 1923, he made a donation for the construction of a school which bears his name in Iraklio, Crete. Τhis was followed by donations to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, churches, philanthropic institutions, associations, cultural and artistic organisations and schools, and he helped many young people complete their studies.

Τhese people, now well-known figures in the world of science, economics and art represent, together with his entrepreneurial achievements, the contribution of Bodossakis to development and improvement in the quality of life in Greece. According to a report in the Τimes of London in 1935, grants by Bodossakis to foundations and assistance to young people to complete their studies, amounted to 200,000 pounds.

Ιn 1955 he donated a sum of 400,000 dollars for the construction of a technical School in Cyprus. Ιn 1960 he donated the shares of his enterprises in Cyprus (Mines, Brewery and Wines, Textiles and Plaster) to the Greek Community of Cyprus.