Alex Patelis, chief economic adviser through Greece's recovery and a Princeton-trained economist, took his memoir fireside at the Hellenic Bankers Association's Christmas soirée.
The Hellenic Bankers Association UK closed its year with a members’ evening at L’Oscar London in Bloomsbury on Tuesday 2 December 2025, built around the economist Alex Patelis. Xenofon Zacharoudis, the Association’s chairman, joined him for a fireside conversation.
Patelis read economics and mathematics at the University of Sussex, then earned a PhD in economics from Princeton in 1997, supervised by Ben Bernanke. He began at Goldman Sachs in New York, then moved to Citigroup Asset Management in London.
At Merrill Lynch he rose to Global Head of FX and Debt Strategy, and later ran the bank’s research on every economy outside North America. He founded his own advisory firm, Patelis Macro, in 2010.
In 2019 he became Chief Economic Adviser to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. He held the post for five years, while Greece regained its investment-grade credit rating. His book The Great Comeback: The Road to Greece’s Credibility, published in 2025, is his account of those years from inside the government.
The conversation was held in Greek, the language in which the book is written. A reception of Christmas drinks, canapés and bowl food followed, at the Association’s last gathering of the year.