Born in Drama in 1948 to a household of migrants from the Pontus area, Apostolidis led a really outstanding entrepreneurial journey. He managed to rework Raycap from a small regional agency using three employees to a multinational titan with manufacturing amenities from Idaho to Munich and from Slovenia to Athens.
It’s been one week for the reason that passing of Costas Apostolidis – a visionary entrepreneur, founder of business surge safety producer Raycap and a beneficiant philanthropist with a permanent affect on his hometown of Drama and past – and his loss of life nonetheless has many Greeks reeling.
The environment on the funeral on Monday at Athens’ First Cemetery was one among deep sorrow and numbness, as family, buddies and notable public figures alike have been in disbelief in regards to the sudden lack of a person with ample creativity and power, and a pioneer that achieved numerous accomplishments.
“When you attempt to say lots for Costas Apostolidis, it’ll by no means be sufficient,” Antypas Karipoglou, a outstanding lawyer from his northern Greek hometown tells Kathimerini. “I’d relatively solely say two phrases: a beneficiant man”.
Born in Drama in 1948 to a household of migrants from the Pontus area, Apostolidis led a really outstanding entrepreneurial journey. He managed to rework Raycap from a small regional agency using three employees to a multinational titan with manufacturing amenities from Idaho to Munich and from Slovenia to Athens.
However past the monumental progress and uncommon scalability of his firm – an much more spectacular feat contemplating the truth that he was a completely self-made entrepreneur – what significantly stands out within the legacy of Apostolidis is the omnipresent altruism he displayed all through the 76 years of his life.
“For me, Costas is without doubt one of the most good examples of a whole and holistic particular person,” Michalis Bodouroglou, who was additionally born in Drama, has been concerned within the transport business for over 35 years and was a detailed buddy of Apostolidis, tells Kathimerini. “He got here from humble beginnings and he distinguished himself in some ways, not solely by means of his work and modern concepts. Collectively along with his skilled accomplishments, he always tried to embody what he at all times felt inside: a generosity, a way of gratitude and reciprocity to his native land and the individuals who reside there,” he provides.
Proof of Apostolidis’ deep love for his hometown was the truth that, even after his firm had grown to unprecedented heights, he selected to keep up the primary manufacturing unit in Drama, disregarding stress from a number of advisors who insisted it made little monetary sense to base operations in a distant and poor a part of northern Greece. In doing so, Apostolidis provided employment alternatives to a whole bunch of locals, one thing that gave him “large pleasure, satisfaction and an actual objective in life,” in keeping with those that knew him properly.
“He had a really magnetic means of main this firm, a mixture of attentiveness and humility that I’ve by no means seen earlier than,” says Sotiris, who has been working for Raycap’s Drama manufacturing unit for greater than a decade. “He knew each single employee on a first-name foundation, he gave salaries that can’t examine to something you’ll discover within the business, and he liked this manufacturing unit as if it have been his second residence. I don’t assume it’s an exaggeration to say that he has accomplished extra for our metropolis than all of the mayors of the final 30 years mixed,” he concludes with conviction.
Certainly, Apostolidis’ generosity went far past the way in which he led his firm, increasing into varied tasks and developments he funded in Drama and elsewhere. “He was not happy with merely giving individuals jobs or monetary help,” says Bodouroglou. “He confirmed his generosity in a sensible and significant means, by doing issues of high quality and of everlasting nature, and most significantly by no means with the objective of self-advertising” he emphasizes.
“We’re speaking about long-term tasks and interventions with a considerable and long-term footprint for town of Drama: from commissioning one of the crucial spectacular architectural workplaces on this planet to design the revamp of town heart, to finishing the restoration of the Sandirvan Mosque, clearing it from the residence buildings that have been suffocating it, and establishing a partnership with the Benaki Museum in order that necessary collections could be displayed there,” he provides.
It appears unattainable to discover a area which the Drama-born entrepreneur didn’t attempt to empower along with his fixed contributions. From enhancing coverage analysis, as the largest donor to Greece’s revered Hellenic Basis for European & Overseas Coverage (ELIAMEP) think-tank, to funding the digitization of historic native newspaper Tharros, to creating Drama a worldwide vacation spot for cinema as a worthwhile supporter of town’s Worldwide Brief Movie Competition, Apostolidis did all of it – whereas concurrently remaining astonishingly introverted and humble.
“Most significantly, past all his accomplishments, he was a really modest particular person, a household man, with an unimaginable spouse and an incredible daughter who I’m certain will proceed to hold out her father’s visions,” Bodouroglou says.
It’s due to this uncommon legacy of fixed innovation and generosity, of a enterprise spirit of distinctive extroversion however a kind-heartedness that at all times seemed inwards, that Greece might be feeling the lack of Costas Apostolidis for a while to return.
