Dr. Iris Efthymiou

Dr. Iris-Panagiota Efthymiou FHEA asks a question most organisations have not thought to ask: not whether their AI works, but whether it works for people. As a Behavioural Economist and AI Governance Advisor, she helps leadership teams build strategies that hold up in the real world, where decisions are made by humans, not spreadsheets.

She holds a PhD in Behavioural Economics, academic positions at Brunel University London and IFSA London. She has authored 22 books and over 80 peer-reviewed publications.

Her consultancy work spans Fortune 500 firms and global organisations across finance, private equity, and wealth management. She specialises in ideation and in helping companies find genuinely new ways to communicate complex ideas so that people actually listen, and act. Her programmes have achieved adoption rates above 80%.

A Member of the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Artificial Intelligence, an Advisory Council Member at the Harvard Business Review, and a Fellow of AISB, she has spoken twice at the United Nations and delivered over 400 keynotes across 30 countries.

"The Ethics of the Triple Transition: AI Governance as the New G in ESG"

How the EU AI Act is a genuine opportunity to embed real governance into ESG. First, it can help Greek companies turn compliance into a competitive edge by using the Act’s risk-based approach to build trustworthy AI systems that genuinely support the green transition, think optimizing energy use in tourism or agriculture without creating hidden environmental costs. Second, behavioral economics gives us practical “nudges” (small, human-centered design choices inside AI tools) that can shift corporate culture from simply ticking boxes to making ethical decisions feel instinctive and rewarding. Third, in Greece’s specific context this creates a unique window to blend digital innovation with social wellbeing, turning the country’s growing AI ecosystem into a model for responsible, people-first sustainability right across Southern Europe.