Sokratis Kokkalis

Sokratis Kokkalis (Greek Σωκράτης Κόκκαλης, born May 27, 1939 in Athens ) is a Greek businessman. He is the founder, president and principal shareholder of the telecommunications company Intracom and President of the Kokkalis Foundation. His wife Elena Farmakis.

Life

Kokkalis was born in 1939 as the son of Medicine Professor Petros Kokkalis in Athens. His father was a communist and member of the Communist rebels in the Greek civil war from 1945 to 1949. After the defeat of the Communists left his family Greece and lived for a short time in Romania, before they settled in the GDR. There his father Petros Kokkalis had a job as a university professor and was also the personal physician of Walter Ulbricht.

Sokratis Kokkalis studied Physics in Moscow and Berlin. In 1962 he finished his studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin. His special areas of science were the electronic technology and telecommunications. Shortly thereafter, in 1963, he began his entrepreneurial activities, and returned in 1965 to Athens, where he settled.

The company Intracom he founded, has played an important role in the transfer of technology to countries of the former Eastern Bloc. In 1999, he was divided from the Betting Systems division of Intracom and founded the company Intralot.

Kokkalis is fluent in Greek, German, English and Russian.

Charge of Stasi activity

Kokkalis said to have been working as an agent for the Stasi. Forums in Greece but were limited because he was already considered at the time they become known of these allegations and referred to a long-ago period.

Commitment to Olympiakos

1991 acquired Kokkalis the basketball team Olympiakos Piraeus. Under his leadership, the team won numerous national and international successes ( eg in 1997 winning the Europa League ). In 1993 he also acquired a majority stake in the football department of Olympiakos. In 2008 he sold the basketball team at George and Panagiotis Angelopoulos and sold in 2010, the majority of the shares in the football team.