Our Board of Directors
Andreas Dracopoulos is Co-President of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), a private, international philanthropic organization that funds organizations and projects worldwide aiming to achieve a broad, lasting, and positive impact for society at large. The Foundation has made more than 5,200 grants to nonprofit organizations around the world that exhibit strong leadership and sound management since its establishment in 1996 at the passing of Andreas’s great uncle, Stavros Niarchos.
Dedicated to the work of philanthropy in both his public and private life, Andreas is a Trustee of The Rockefeller University in New York, Johns Hopkins University (JHU) in Baltimore, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. In addition, he serves on the Advisory Board of the Berman Institute of Bioethics at JHU and is an Honorary Trustee of the New York Public Library (NYPL), where he served as a Trustee from 2003 to 2010. From 2009 to 2018 he served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, D.C., and he served on the Board of the Dalton School in New York from 2012 to 2018 and 2019 to 2020.
He has also provided longstanding personal support to many projects, mainly in the areas of education, arts and culture, and medicine. Among these activities, he provided the founding grant to establish the Dracopoulos iDeas Lab at CSIS and supported the creation of the Dracopoulos-Bloomberg Bioethics iDeas Lab at JHU’s Berman Institute of Bioethics, where he also endowed the directorship. Through his personal grantmaking, he continues to support the important work of a variety of nonprofit organizations.
He has been honored to receive a number of recognitions for his work. In 2022, the New York Landmarks Conservancy honored Andreas as a Living Landmark for his notable contributions to New York City. In 2021, he was invested as Archon Grand Orator (Megas Rhetor) by archbishop of Constantinople and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I and made an Honorary Battalion Chief by the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY), the organization’s highest civilian honor. In 2018, H.E. the President of the Hellenic Republic awarded Andreas the rank of the Grand Cross of the Order of Honor. In 2016, the Republic of France awarded Andreas the rank of the Officer of the Legion of Honor. In 2012, the Hellenic Republic awarded him the rank of the Grand Commander of the Order of the Phoenix.
In 2017, Andreas received humanitarian awards from the New York Stem Cell Foundation and the FDNY Foundation. The Child Mind Institute honored him in 2015 for his longstanding commitment and support in providing mental health resources for children. In the same year, Andreas received the Person of the Year award from the Hellenic American Chamber of Commerce and was honored during The National Herald’s 100th anniversary celebration for his contributions to promoting and supporting Greek education. In 2012, the NYPL honored him for his personal contributions to the Library’s educational programs.
Andreas was born and raised in Athens, Greece, and graduated from Athens College. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. In June 2021, Andreas received an honorary degree, Doctor of Laws, from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. He lives in New York City.
Dedicated to the work of philanthropy in both his public and private life, Andreas is a Trustee of The Rockefeller University in New York, Johns Hopkins University (JHU) in Baltimore, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. In addition, he serves on the Advisory Board of the Berman Institute of Bioethics at JHU and is an Honorary Trustee of the New York Public Library (NYPL), where he served as a Trustee from 2003 to 2010. From 2009 to 2018 he served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, D.C., and he served on the Board of the Dalton School in New York from 2012 to 2018 and 2019 to 2020.
He has also provided longstanding personal support to many projects, mainly in the areas of education, arts and culture, and medicine. Among these activities, he provided the founding grant to establish the Dracopoulos iDeas Lab at CSIS and supported the creation of the Dracopoulos-Bloomberg Bioethics iDeas Lab at JHU’s Berman Institute of Bioethics, where he also endowed the directorship. Through his personal grantmaking, he continues to support the important work of a variety of nonprofit organizations.
He has been honored to receive a number of recognitions for his work. In 2022, the New York Landmarks Conservancy honored Andreas as a Living Landmark for his notable contributions to New York City. In 2021, he was invested as Archon Grand Orator (Megas Rhetor) by archbishop of Constantinople and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I and made an Honorary Battalion Chief by the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY), the organization’s highest civilian honor. In 2018, H.E. the President of the Hellenic Republic awarded Andreas the rank of the Grand Cross of the Order of Honor. In 2016, the Republic of France awarded Andreas the rank of the Officer of the Legion of Honor. In 2012, the Hellenic Republic awarded him the rank of the Grand Commander of the Order of the Phoenix.
In 2017, Andreas received humanitarian awards from the New York Stem Cell Foundation and the FDNY Foundation. The Child Mind Institute honored him in 2015 for his longstanding commitment and support in providing mental health resources for children. In the same year, Andreas received the Person of the Year award from the Hellenic American Chamber of Commerce and was honored during The National Herald’s 100th anniversary celebration for his contributions to promoting and supporting Greek education. In 2012, the NYPL honored him for his personal contributions to the Library’s educational programs.
Andreas was born and raised in Athens, Greece, and graduated from Athens College. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. In June 2021, Andreas received an honorary degree, Doctor of Laws, from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. He lives in New York City.
George Agouridis is a member of the Board of Directors of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and it’s Senior Legal Advisor. He is a member of the Athens Bar Association. He served as board member at Hellenic Shipyards SA (1980 - 1985), until the company’s transfer to the Greek State and was also a board member at Alpha Bank from 2000 to 2014. He has also served in various capacities, including Vice-President and President, at the boards of a number of publicly –traded companies including among others Alpha Finance, Delta Pliroforiki, Unisystems and others. He has served at the board of a number of non-profit organizations. He also served as President of the Board of Directors of the non-profit limited liability company “Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center A.E.” which undertook the SNFCC’s construction, funded exclusively by the Foundation, until the SNFCC was delivered as a gift to the Greek State, in February 2017.
Dr. Heini Murer was born in 1944 in Beckenried, Switzerland. He earned his Master of Science in Biology and his PhD in Biochemistry at Fribourg University, followed by a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Laboratory of Biochemistry at ETH Zurich. In 1975 he joined the Max Planck Institute in Frankfurt and became a member of the Renal Physiology Laboratory. In 1978 he began leading his own research group at the Max Planck Institute.
In 1979, Dr. Murer joined the faculty of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Fribourg as an Assistant Professor, and in 1981 he became a professor (Extraordinarius) at the Institute of Physiology of the University of Zurich, where he was awarded full professorship (Ordinarius) in 1996, and was Head of the Department for eight years. From March 2006 to August 2010, Heini Murer served as Vice-President (Prorektor) for Medicine and the Sciences at the University of Zurich. In August 2010 he became a Professor Emeritus.
Dr. Murer is the author/co-author of over 450 research-publications and has served on the Editorial Boards of leading scientific journals in his field. He was Editor-in-Chief of Pflügers Archiv-European Journal of Physiology from 2001 to 2006. Currently, he is an Associate Editor of PHYSIOLOGY (American Society of Physiology).
Dr. Murer has been awarded various prizes and honours over the last twenty years, which include: Cloëtta Prize (Switzerland), Homer Smith Award (USA), Otto Nägeli Prize (Switzerland), Adolf Fick Prize (Germany), Franz Volhard Medal (Germany), Robert Berliner Lectureship (Yale University; USA) and Robert Berliner Award (American Physiological Society), Robert Pitts Memorial Lectureship (IUPS; USA), Donald W. Seldin Award (National Kidney Foundation; USA), Richard Award (International Society of Nephrology), Borrelli Medaille (Italy) , ERA-EDTA Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievements (Eurpean Renal Association), Bene Merenti University Medal (University Regensburg, Germany), Johann-Melchior-Wyrsch Prize (Switzerland). He is an Honorary Member of the American Physiological Society and a member of the Academia Europea, the German Academy Leopoldina and the Swiss Academy for Medical Sciences (SAMW). He holds Honorary Doctorates from the University of Patras (Greece, 2016) and the University of Regensburg (Germany, 2016). He was member and president of the “biology and medicine” division of the research council of the Swiss National Science Foundation (1993-2004), chaired the program committee of the World Congress of Nephrology in Berlin 2003 (9000 participants), and the Gordon Research Conference on Membrane Transport Proteins in 2004. Until 2014 he was the co-chairperson of the Scientific Advisory Board of EDTA-ERA (European Renal Association) and until 2014 served on the selection panel for “Starting Grants” and ‘Consolidator Grants” of the European Research Council (ERC). Until August 2016 he also served as a Founding Director of the Graduate Campus of the University of Zürich, a newly formed institution aiming to advance the quality of doctoral studies and to foster interactions between different disciplines and different Graduate Schools (www.grc.uzh.ch).
