" George was born in Perista on April 23, 1953. At the age of 2 years old, his family moved to Athens where he received his elementary and secondary education. He also attended university level studies at the School of Economics which, at that time, was a department of the Law School at The University of Athens. He received in 1975 a Bachelors Degree in Economics, graduating with suma cum laude, i.e., as one of the 5 students in his class.
" In January 1976, he came to the USA, with a scholarship from the Bank of Greece, to pursue graduate studies. He obtained first an MBA (1978), and then Masters and Ph.D. degrees in Finance from New York University, graduating with distinction in 1983.
" From 1978 to 1983 he held various teaching positions at NYU and Baruch College of the State University of New York where he taught Finance as Adjunct and Assistant Professor of Finance.

" In the Spring of 1983 he moved to Washington DC, joining the World Bank's Financial Operations Department which specialized in raising all the funds required to run the organization. It was in that job that he first became familiar with the workings of the global capital markets. After spending 4 years, he left the World Bank to join Security Pacific National Bank, a Los Angeles based bank, in their New York operations.
After spending a short time in New York (6 months), he was transferred to London. He stayed there for 6 years during which he built Security Pacific's derivatives trading activities among the top in the world, and he ended up being responsible for running Security Pacific's global derivatives activities.
" In 1992, after Security Pacific's merger with Bank of America, he was asked to move to San Francisco to run Bank of America's Derivatives operations from the headquarters. He spent 2 years with Bank of America, at which point he decided to come back to the East Coast, by accepting the position of Treasurer at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), an affiliate of the World Bank.
In 1996, George returned to Wall Street and held several senior level posts at various Wall Street firms including UBS, Dresdner and Merrill Lynch
Since 2002, George has been running his own firm, ETOLIAN CAPITAL which he started from scratch, an alternative investments firm specializing in corporate bonds for institutional and high net worth individuals
" George has been an active member of the financial community by being a member of several professional organizations, publishing several articles, and by being a frequent speaker in industry forums. He has also been an active member of the Greek American community supporting, through the "Handjinicolaou Family" Foundation, a variety of causes including the initiatives and activities of the Agios Athanasios Association of Perista, where he has served as its President and currently serves as its Treasurer.
" He lives in New York and visits Greece and Perista - where he still maintains his grandfather's home - as often as he can.