Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou
Entrepreneur and Philanthropist
CV as of 6th November 2024
Stelios was born in Athens, Greece in 1967, and is a dual citizen of Cyprus and the UK living in Monaco. He is best known for creating the easy family of brands (www.easy.com) starting with easyJet.com in 1994 when he was just 27 years old.
Six years later he floated the airline then comprising 16 Boeing aircraft on the London Stock Exchange in order to fund expansion of the fleet. Today easyJet operates more than 340 Airbus aircraft, carrying around 100 million passengers annually. Since the start the airline has flown more than one billion passengers. Stelios and his family are the largest single shareholder with a stake of around 15%.
Stelios took the strategic decision to retain ownership of the easyJet.com brand in his own private company called www.easyGroup.world and expanded the easy brand to many other sectors including www.easyHotel.com, www.easyCar.com, www.easyStorage.com, www.easyMoney.com, and many others. The 100 most active easy brands can be found at www.easy.com. For more information you are invited to view a 4 minute video explaining the business model of the easy family of brands at www.easyHistory.info.
In 2006 at the age of 39, Stelios received a knighthood from HM Queen Elizabeth II, becoming Sir Stelios in recognition of services to entrepreneurship.
Stelios uses the steady stream of royalties from the revenues of the easy family of brands to fund his philanthropic work through the charitable foundation he established in 2011 (see www.stelios.org). The foundation supports a very well diversified range of good causes across the 6 countries where he and his family have lived and worked : the UK and Ireland, Monaco and France and Greece and Cyprus.
In 2017 Stelios signed the Giving Pledge https://givingpledge.org/pledger?pledgerId=334 committing to donate half his wealth to his UK registered charity www.stelios.foundation during his lifetime or via his will. To date Stelios and easyGroup have given more than 100 million euro to charity.
Early years and family:
Stelios is the second son of Loucas and Nedi Haji-Ioannou. His late father Loucas, a Greek-Cypriot shipping magnate, supported Stelios financially in his entrepreneurial start-up venture back in 1994. His brother Polys and sister Clelia are substantial co-shareholders in easyJet. Stelios attended the Doukas High School in Athens till 1984, graduated from the London School of Economics in 1987 and the City University Business School in 1988.
Stelios has lived in Monaco since 1990 and works from his family office and local foundation www.stelios.mc . In 2023 he received Monaco’s highest honour from the Sovereign Prince Albert II https://stelios.mc/other-news/sir-stelios-haji-ioannou-receives-ordre-of-saint-charles-by-hsh-prince-albert-ii-monaco/ Stelios and his partner Ms Orla Murphy have a daughter named Aria Haji-Ioannou born in Monaco in 2018.