At the age of 14 about Stefanos Kasselakis immigrated to the USA. He did not find himself in a completely unfamiliar new world. His older brother had already followed this path by eight years, studying undergraduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. However, his own course would have been different. His honors in the Hellenic Mathematical Society competition and participation in the related Youth Balkaniad, good grades at Athens College and participation in the summer preparatory program secured him a full scholarship as a boarder at the demanding high school of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.

The same institution graduated, among others, George W. Bush, Sr., and Jr., while the student candidate acceptance rate hovered at 9% this academic semester. In the summer of 2005, in a school magazine that featured short biographies of high school students, Mr. Kasselakis did not rule out a future in politics. But it took nearly two decades and a career in banking and shipping before he landed on the state ballot. SYRIZA. A choice that has been described as a “surprise”.

“Many may consider me a foreign body or a “surprise” for SYRIZA, I don’t like labels. Either way, I’m definitely not a foreign soul.” he says “K” and states that the first contact with the party was made a year ago through the Transparency Sector and Pavlos Polakis, with whom they share a common Cretan origin.

A visit to Phillips Academy defined him. He remembers that there was fierce competition among the students, but no betrayal. “At school, it was customary to acknowledge each other’s successes, congratulate them,” he says. As a student in Greece, he focused on mathematics and physics, but in the US he also realized the value of research in the humanities. He also talks about the community service programs the students participated in and how he taught English to two girls who immigrated to the US from the Congo and spoke only French. He acknowledges that such a prestigious private school provides its students, in addition to education, networking, an important resource for their professional career. However, he emphasizes that the US has a largely meritocracy system that empowers the underprivileged.

With a scholarship from Andreas Drakopoulos, President of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, he attended the University of Pennsylvania and received two degrees in finance and international sciences. In parallel with his studies, he volunteered for seven months at Joe Biden’s campaign headquarters in the 2008 presidential election. He worked on the organizational side, fundraising and was based in Iowa, where he led two election divisions. He still remembers the speech he was called to give to 400 voters.

“Many may consider me a foreign body or a “surprise” for SYRIZA, I don’t like labels. Either way, I’m definitely not a foreign soul.”

In 2006, he began writing articles for the community newspaper Ethniko Kyrykas. First in the “Student Column” and then in “The Color of the Market”. According to him, after graduation, he had two paths: either to actively participate in politics and join the Biden team, or to go into finance. He chose the latter because he felt the task was more difficult and he would acquire technocratic and administrative skills. In 2009 he joined Goldman Sachs. He spent the first year in London, then four years in New York. Its subject was the sector of procurement of raw materials (energy, metals, agricultural products). He recalls that the situation was unfavorable, because it was preceded by the financial crisis of 2008.

His work could reach up to 18 hours a day in periods. “There I learned to stay calm under pressure to take the next step,” he emphasizes. “But I realized that no matter how much you contributed in three or four years, no matter how many hours you worked, no matter how much money you saved, no matter how much damage you fixed, by the end day they remember the last thing you did,” he says.

He then turned to shipping, where he has been active in business to this day. He is based in Miami but is currently based in Athens due to elections. In pre-election interviews he gave, he focuses on the “great shortcomings that exist in the administration of justice and social rights.” Whereas he believes that the only superiority that matters “is on the moral level”. “A mother who works, raises children alone and cannot breathe, isn’t she perfect?” stated.

In August last year, in his text in Ethniko Kyrykas, he indicated what the Greeks of the Diaspora could claim in connection with the parliamentary elections. He mentioned the operation of expatriate service centers in every major city abroad with a Greek presence to deal with bureaucratic issues, as well as the creation of an online platform for communication between the Greek state and expatriates. “Even if we feel that a foreign country has offered us something that our homeland could not give us, we will always carry Greece within ourselves,” he wrote.

SYRIZA reports that the choice of the 35-year-old businessman is part of the party’s decision to create a regional ballot in which party officials will not feature prominently. “He is a young man with a strong track record who is doing well abroad,” Komunduru says. Although the ninth seat he was placed in cannot be elected, he is expected to bring his proposals and ideas to the party after the election, like other candidates.

“The team that I saw has managerial ability and I think they really want to do something good for the country,” he says. “I am given the opportunity to contribute to the local political dialogue. There is no agenda, I will say what I believe, they let me be myself.”