Panagiotis Laskaridis, with straightforwardness and frankness, does not spare strong words. “To have a voice and to be heard you must step forward,” he said in 2018 as President of the European Community Shipowners’ Associations.
His life seems to be interwoven with the vast blue: from his origins to his studies. From his main business activity to his active participation in related collective, scientific and cultural bodies.
Furthermore, from the selectivity of his collecting interests: nautical instruments and devices, which he began collecting from his student years, but also life artifacts from the legendary heroic figure of the seas, Admiral Horatio Nelson, or the artworks of the painter of the sea, Konstantinos Volanakis.
With excellent philanthropic work, which leaves no room for doubt about how much he has offered to his homeland, Panagiotis Laskaridis rightly holds an enviable position on the global shipping map.
The shipowner and businessman Panagiotis Laskaridis was born in Athens in 1947 and is five years older than his brother Athanasios, also a shipowner and businessman, with whom he shared a common business life for many years. They are the sons of Konstantinos Laskaridis, who maintained a small fishing business as early as the 1960s, and Aikaterini Laskaridis.
It is noted that the “Kaiti Laskaridis” Library, which was created in 1993 in Neo Faliro by Konstantinos in memory of his wife, was evolved by the Laskaridis family into the dynamic Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation in 2007 and relocated to Piraeus, constituting “a beacon of culture and an ark of knowledge” accessible to all.
Panagiotis Laskaridis completed a long and impressive cycle of studies: he started in Athens and the German School of Athens; he continued at the Braunschweig University of Technology receiving a degree in mechanical engineering; subsequently, he traveled to London for postgraduate studies, attending King’s College for an M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering and University College London, known as UCL, for an M.Sc. in Naval Architecture. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Department of Economics of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the University of Piraeus. He is a fellow of the Institute of Marine Engineers, the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, the Royal Institution of Naval Architects and the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME).
He served his military service in the Hellenic Navy, of course, as an Ensign Reserve Officer, and as a civilian he joined the workforce of the family business, which managed ocean-going fishing-refrigerator vessels in the Atlantic Ocean.
However, not much time passed before the two brothers, Panagiotis and Athanasios, decided to move dynamically into the shipping sector. In 1977 they founded Laskaridis Shipping and initially operated as chartering brokers.
Within just one year they also established the shipping company Lavinia Corporation. Gradually, their business grew to a global scale, possessing one of the largest fleets of fishing-refrigerator vessels, oil tankers, dry bulk carriers, ship repair facilities and marine terminals.
Simultaneously, they were distinguished among the most significant capital investors from sea to land, with participations in hotel units (such as the premier historic hotel “Megali Brettannia” in the heart of Athens), in the real estate and entertainment sector, and in air transport.
Since 2021, the two brothers have separated their business activities and are moving on different, independent professional paths.
Today, Panagiotis Laskaridis manages around 90 ships and is CEO of Laskaridis Shipping and Lavinia, which employ approximately 3,500 people and radiate across all longitudes, latitudes, and seas: the Group’s activities extend from Europe and the Far East to the USA and South America.
The media call him a “national benefactor”, yet he himself does not seem comfortable with this characterization. “To do good without much talk and publicity. Then it truly takes root,” he believes; or as he had said in his uniquely disarming way at a recent event by “Naftemporiki” for the album The Greeks: “The real benefactors were those people, 100 or 150 years ago, who bequeathed their entire fortune to the homeland. We are just fighting here and there to ‘plug’ some holes.”
The truth, however, is that Panagiotis Laskaridis, both as a business entity and as President of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation, has contributed to countless social, hospital, educational, and cultural institutions, but mainly to the Greek Armed Forces, especially the Hellenic Navy, and the Security Forces, especially the Hellenic Coast Guard. For his long-standing services to the homeland, in 2020 the Hellenic Navy awarded him the honorary rank of Rear Admiral, while he was twice honored by the Presidency of the Republic – in 2018 with the medal of the Commander of the Order of Honour and in 2024 with that of the Grand Cross of the Order of Honour.
“Fortune and the homeland have favored me to realize almost all of my dreams. Thus, I too have reached the point of creating another, different vision.
With the needs of myself and my family having been covered and placed on solid foundations, what I dream of today is, first and foremost, to be able to help my homeland by giving back all that it has done and offered for me.
As a greater goal, I have to finally see Greece emerge from its shell of misery and pessimism and, with the help of its new generation, become a modern, robust, well-governed, and strong state of Europe.
One hundred years ago, the destroyer of Hellenism in Asia Minor, Mustafa Kemal Pasha, the so-called Atatürk, governing New Turkey, also faced great problems and challenges. So Kemal said: ‘For a nation to achieve great things, three things are required: First, there must be a vision of where this nation should be led. Second, the people must believe in this vision. And third, there must be a strong, visionary leadership to lead this people to the realization of this vision.’
We in Greece have achieved the first two of these three goals. All Greeks want a Greece as I described above and we have believed in it.
What is now required is to find that capable leadership which will lead us to the realization of this vision.
