Career Biography

In short, Maria-Stefania Katsiapi is a corporate attorney registered with the Athens Bar Association with wide and diversified professional experience, coupled with over 15 years of in-house legal counselling. She has extensive expertise in managing legal, regulatory, and operational issues across multiple business functions, supporting organisations in complex corporate environments and driving strategic initiatives from a legal perspective.

Katsiapi currently serves as Group General Counsel, Legal & Compliance at IDEAL Holdings S.A., an investment company operating with a private equity philosophy to acquire majority positions in healthy, mid-market companies in Greece. Until August 2025, Katsiapi held the position of Director of Legal Services at Public Group, part of the Olympia Group. Public Group is an ecosystem of innovative scale-ups centered around its flagship omnichannel retail business in Greece and Cyprus, operating under the brands Public and Public +Home (ex-MediaMarkt), with nearly €500m in sales, 62 physical stores, and four online shops. She was recently recognised with a Gold Industry Award (Business Law Awards 2024) as one of the most influential in-house counsels leading teams that shape the Retail, Consumer, and TMT sectors in Greece with operational and legal expertise. Katsiapi has also been included in the Legal 500 GC Powerlist 2024, reflecting her impact and leadership in the legal profession.

Before her appointment as Legal Director in 2019, Katsiapi was deputed as Senior Legal Counsel to Olympia Group, belonging to the interests of Panos Germanos, where she played a key role in negotiations and in implementing the Group’s strategic direction from a legal standpoint. Her work spanned corporate governance, M&A, franchise agreements, lease and supply contracts, company incorporations, real estate transactions, and multi-million-euro complex deals, while also supporting day-to-day operations and statutory compliance in Greece and abroad. Earlier in her career, she had worked for several well-recognised law firms (including Norton Rose Fulbright in Athens), specialising in the sphere of corporate and commercial law, M&A and companies’ transformations, corporate financing, energy and real estate projects.

Katsiapi holds a LL.B. (Degree in Law) from the University of Athens, a LL.M. degree (Master of Laws) with distinction in International Commercial Law from City University of London, as well as a MSc in Law and Accounting from London School of Economics and an executive customized MBA from ALBA Graduate Business School.