Sotirios Karagiannis

Sotiris Karagiannis has over twenty years of experience as an academic lecturer and corporate trainer. Sotiris brings in his training a blend of industry experience with hands-on approaches that put the trainees in the leading role. He facilitates rather than lectures and ensures trainees feel motivated to participate and engage in activities from the very beginning. Adopting the renowned people-centered practices of Dale Carnegie, he creates a climate of trust and inspires his trainees to apply what they have developed immediately. He follows similar delivery practices in his academic teaching, helping students integrate theory and practice quickly. He has worked for four years in the Personnel Department of the Hellenic Shipyards and five years in the packaging industry. Soon after, he moved in the area of education and training. He has worked extensively with the University of Sunderland, managing the Athens-based BSc in Business Studies program and MBA program and taught Management and Leadership, Strategic Human Resource Management and Research Methods for postgraduate students, under his capacity of Associate Lecturer. For the last seven years, he is a regular visiting lecturer at the University of New York in Prague, where he teaches Organizational Behavior and Leadership and Cross-Cultural Management on the MBA program. He also teaches Sales and Operations Management at the University of New York in Tirana. He has wide training experience in soft-skills training and has trained managers and senior executives in leadership, negotiations and communication, sales and customer care as well as presentation skills. In addition to Greece, he has trained professionals in various countries like Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, and Republic of Macedonia. For three years, he successfully managed and trained for the Greek franchise of Dale Carnegie Training, where he also received his further train-the-trainer education. Currently, he is Managing Partner and Senior Trainer of Potential Ltd, an exclusive franchise of MDI (Management Development Institute), a leading training and development firm, based in Vienna, Austria. His training portfolio includes companies like Apple, Swarowski, 3M, Janssen, Johnson&Johnson, Ericsson, Oracle, Viohalco Group, Danone, Elbisco, TUI, Quest Group, Sfakianakis Group of Companies, where he developed and delivered programs for managers in leadership and sales, customer service and breakthrough presentation skills. He is currently working on the development of a training program on authentic leadership, helping leaders explore their true role in exercising positive influence on people.