Our Team

Demetri Argyropoulos

Founder, Chairman & CEO, Avant Global

As Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Demetri Argyropoulos leads the vision and corporate governance for Avant Global. He is highly regarded in the global business community for his proven track record in building successful relationships based on mutual value creation. By establishing commonality and rapport, Demetri creates an atmosphere of trust that enables relationships to flourish.

Since founding Avant Global over two decades ago, Demetri and his partners have been involved in generating more than 20 billion in value across a range of projects and businesses. He has been a catalyst in successfully investing or co-founding over 100 new companies in various sectors.

Demetri is a Founding Investor of The Healing Company, Special Advisor to the CEO of Sandbox AQ, Co-Founder of AXIA, Chairman & Co-Founder of Avant Consumer, Visionary Founder with The Chopra Foundation; General Partner at EQUIAM; Chairman of Stanford Technologies; Co-Founder of Owl Medical (acquired by German multi-national Miltenyi Biotec), and is on the Advisory Board of bSpot, Ripple Labs, TRVLR, Naxos Apothecary, and Trainme.

Demetri is a member of the National Hellenic Society, YPO-WPO, Tiger 21, Leadership 100, and Harvard Business School Alumni Organization. He Co-Chaired the 2018-2019 YPO Innovation Summit in Silicon Valley and served as the Global Envoy for Greece for the YPO Global Diplomacy Network (GDN) & YPO Ambassador to Davos. He was also inducted into the Order of Merit of Savoy, an order of knighthood bestowed by the Royal House of Savoy, the last Kings of Italy.

Demetri was the recipient of the 2010 Gusi Peace Prize for his achievements, ideals, and values. He has been recognized as one of the “Top 40 Business Leaders Under 40” by the Pacific Coast Business Times and named as one of “Greek America’s Forty Under 40” class twice, one in 2014 and 2018. He was also awarded the 2003 National Leadership Award and 2003 Businessman of the Year Award by the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Demetri graduated from Westmont College and studied at the American University of Washington D.C. and Georgetown University’s American Government and Foreign Policy Program. He is also a graduate of the Exponential Technologies Executive Program at the Singularity University and Owner/President Management Program at the Harvard Business School.

Fanis Christodoulou

COO and Co-Founder

An agronomist who has worked with food companies in Greece and the Mediterranean region on product development, Christodoulou’s focus at Avant Global is to detect and develop business opportunities worldwide for the company’s consumer products arm. Christodoulou’s vast knowledge of producers, producing methods, and nutrition provide him with a unique foresight into the food sector and its technologies.

After attending the Agricultural University of Athens, where his studies focused on agronomy, sustainable farming methods and nutrition values, Christodoulou created one of the first organic goji berries farms in Europe. He organized and managed Farmers Republic, the first private farmers market in Greece, and was responsible for gathering the highest quality products for distribution and sale at the market over a span of 3 years, during which he met with over 500 producers. In that period, Fanis gathered over 2000 organic products, many traditional with unique value. Christodoulou was also the driving force behind Farmer Republic’s distinguished line of premium food products with limited and numbered production. Christodoulou has also worked as a project manager for various startup companies such as Instayacht and Hippocrates Medicine.

Geili Kruusimaa

Nutritional Advisor and Co-Founder

Geili is a certified holistic nutritionist who received her certificate through Bauman College accredited by ACCET. At the same school she also completed advanced business curriculum to channel her passion and knowledge into a strategy. Geili is contagiously positive and full of life. She is most passionate about helping others to live healthier and happier lives!

She has been into wellness since her younger years. Her deeper interest in nutrition was sparked during her modeling career where she often encountered highly dysfunctional relationship with food which was often seen as an enemy and rather a tool to make one sick instead of healing. From there on she decided to learn nutrition more in depth, because she strongly believes food is meant to heal and bring joy into one’s life.

Geili specializes in empowering people to create and maintain a healthy lifestyle supported by sleep, stress management, nutritious food, mindfulness practice, movement, and healthy relationships. She also teaches women how to heal the relationship with food and their bodies, and ditch the diet circle for good. Geili’s role is to guide one’s journey toward greater wellness, energy and vibrancy. Her holistic approach considers all aspects of one’s health—body, mind and spirit. She treats each individual as unique, and based on individual needs she helps to find unique nutritional requirements to reach one’s optimal health.

Outside of her nutrition career, Geili loves traveling, being outdoors, running, doing yoga and pilates, baking, trying new recipes and reading.