ETHOS SPRING 2015
Steve Koutsantonis Years at ACS: 1989-1996
Dr. Alkistis Agiorgiti Leading Expert in Self Confidence for Professionals Coaching & Training World-Wide
“My life’s mission is to coach and train professionals to become deeply self-confident and better at influencing others for positive change.” I graduated from ACS in 1986. I have many fond memories of ACS, especially from Humanities class: I loved how they (Demos & Medeiros) brought culture alive for us, Art, History & Philosophy, did not remain ‘distant’ & ‘lofty’ ideas; These two inspired teachers, with a capital “T” , opened my doors of perception, and cultivated critical thinking and creativity in me and my classmates. I will forever be grateful for all the positive influences, which built my self-confidence, so that I could later face the challenges of the world. In 2003 I was invited for a conference to speak in the ACS theatre, which was one of the most moving events in my life.
I received a BA from Yale and was an economics major. During my college years, I received the Catherine Jarman scholarship and studied abroad at Oxford. After graduation, I went to work on Wall Street as an equity research analyst at Bank of America Securities. I then took a year off and came back to Greece to do my military service. I returned to the US and got my MBA from the Wharton School. After business school, I worked as an analyst and portfolio manager at Fidelity Investments in Boston and as an analyst at hedge fund Millenium Partners. I currently am a Director at Brookfield Investment Management and run a hedge fund team. I am on the Board of the Wharton Club of Chicago and a member of the Chicago Association of Business Economics and the CFA Society of Chicago. Along the way I got married (to Michelle) and have a newborn daughter (Evangeline).
For over 20 years now, I have worked, as a management coach, consultant, and trainer promoting professional & personal development. My mission in life is to coach professionals to become self-confident, in any situation that they are faced with. In order to achieve this,
What I remember most from my time at ACS was that it was a place where I could find other people with similar backgrounds. To this day my closest friends are ACS people. And there is no denying that there is an ACS “dialect” with specific sayings that only we know (example: “we say them”).
I hold a Master’s in Integrative Psychotherapy (University of Middlesex, UK). I hold a PhD in Philosophy (University of Sedona, Arizona USA). I have studied NLP with its ‘originators’ (Tony Robbins & Richard Bandler) and am a member of the American Alliance of Hypnotists. Originally, I studied international banking at the Chartered Institute of Bankers in London, and worked in Corporate Finance (Barclays’s Bank Near East division). My cultural background is diverse; I am originally Greek, but I grew up in Montreal, studied in London, worked in Rome, Paris, Berlin, Qatar and the US.
I have very fond memories of going to school with my siblings (Kathy, who is an Executive Director at Morgan Stanley in NY and Tim who is a shipping tanker broker in Athens) and sharing the same social circle, participating in the same activities and taking trips abroad together. I also feel that the school integrated the whole family and my parents found a valuable social outlet as well. My favorite class was Humanities with Kathy Jasonides and Janet Karvouniaris (and Steve Madeiros guest starred). Although I chose a career in finance which is pretty far from the classics, Byzantium and Impressionism, I have carried an interest in art history to this day and I think that class was a major reason why I quickly felt comfortable at a school like Yale which has a very demanding liberal arts curriculum. In fact my economics seminar paper was titled “Economics of the Arts” and examined the markets for Impressionist and Old Master paintings.