How a Greek startup can become a multinational company

The Parliamentary Committee on Research and Technology met on the topic of the global expansion of Greek companies in the innovation ecosystem. The guest speaker was Mr. Byron Nikolaidis, Founder and CEO of PeopleCert Group, which is active internationally in the field of certification of skills, conducting millions of exams with the help of technology in 230 countries worldwide.

The Chairman of the Committee and Member of Parliament of ND, Professor Christos Tarantilis, underlined in his introductory speech that the example of PeopleCert proves in practice the possibility of Greek startups:

– to develop into “unicorns” companies, ie startups with a value of more than 1 billion dollars,

– advance and transform with the support of technology into multinational startups operating in hundreds of countries,

– be able to acquire other companies, in order to achieve high growth rates.

Mr. Tarantilis pointed out that the goal of the Commission from September 2021 is to record specific proposals from active and successful members of the Greek innovation ecosystem to create a mature ecosystem, which will be able to produce a number of successful Greek startup companies. After all, as he stressed at the end of his speech, in order for Greece to achieve its national goal, to develop into an innovation hub in Southeastern Europe, it should not only progress in relation to its performance in the past but also in comparison with the other countries in the region that have already moved dynamically to achieve the same goal.

Afterwards, the guest speaker, Mr. Nikolaidis, after informing the members of the Committee on how he managed to have a unicorn company starting from scratch today, focused on the success factors of PeopleCert, ie

– to achieve high growth rates (at an annual rate of about 40% in the last decade), an element that worked multiplier for the high valuation of the company,

– the utilization of the English institutions, as he characteristically mentioned, (eg the English banks), which successfully supported the global expansion of the company,

– to focus on the competitive advantages of the company, as a result of which they prevail over their competitors in large international competitions.

Afterwards, Mr. Nikolaidis pointed out that in order to develop a start-up company, it needs to have a good idea and, most importantly, to operate in an environment that allows the people of the team to grow, successfully implementing the idea. In this case, he stressed, the company will be able to secure the necessary funds for its further development.

Mr. Nikolaidis also stated that every company must remain faithful to its vision, its mission and its basic principles and values, to have very high goals and ambitions, emphasizing that the use of technology is imperative and that it must is developed and implemented in such a way as, on the one hand, to facilitate the implementation of the company’s innovations and, on the other hand, to support its global development.

In closing, Mr. Nikolaidis stated that the activity of many foreign companies in Greece, such as Microsoft and Google, is due, among other things, to the excellent framework of Greek labor legislation and that, if the Greek public and Greek society wants to rise in the global index productivity, then adopting standards and best practices is the only way.