Maria Vlachou Maria is the CEO of Fereikos-Helix, a company that oversees the development of organic snail farming globally and CEO of Maria Vlachou LTD, specialising in the branding, packaging and export of Greek high quality agricultural products. Fereikos-Helix is among the National Champions of the 2013 European Business Awards and was the first company in Greece to participate in the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs programme.
In 2011, Maria was awarded the Greek Entrepreneur of the Year prize and in 2013, she was included in the Fortune list of “40 under 40” in Greece. In addition, she is on the advisory board of Hellenic Start-Up Association and mentor at several start-up initiatives, as well as an Endeavor Global Entrepreneur. Maria speaks 9 languages and has studied foreign languages and literature at Federico II University, Naples, and holds a PhD in Comparative philology from the University of Porto.