Our Team
Rythmisis consists of legal professionals and public officials who are actively involved either through legal practice or through their academic work with the digital space and its regulation.
Founder: Dr. Maria- Oraiozili Koutsoupia, Lawyer
Resume: Dr. Maria-Oraiozili Koutsoupia is a qualified lawyer in Greece and Belgium, with extensive experience as an AI legal expert in Brussels, including work at top-tier U.S. law firms focused on healthcare and medical technologies. She is currently working as an Officer at the European Research Council of the European Commission and she has been appointed as one of the National Representatives of Greece on the EU AI Board Subgroups. Maria-Oraiozili holds a PhD in Information Law from the University of Athens Law School and has completed three master’s degrees in law: one in Public Law, one in International Legal Studies, and one in Intellectual Property, Information, Communication, and Technologies from the University of Athens and KU Leuven Law Schools. She has published numerous articles in public law and digital healthcare. Maria-Oraiozili is also the Founder of Rythmisis, Greece’s first National Institute of Artificial Intelligence, Data Protection, and Digital Governance Law, which combines law and technology to promote regulatory compliance.
President: Georgios Galanopoulos, Lawyer
Georgios Galanopoulos is a graduate of the Athens Law School, holds a Master’s Degree in Public Law and is a PhD candidate of the same Law School. He has significant judicial experience in administrative and civil law cases, while he is also involved in compliance projects of public and private entities with data protection law. He has worked in law firms in Athens and Nafplion, and since 2017 he has maintained a law office in Nafplion. He has worked in the trainee legal auditors’ department of the Data Protection Authority. In 2019, following a written competition, he received a scholarship from the Maragopoulou Foundation for Human Rights and participated in the 50th summer school on international law of the Rene Cassin Foundation in Strasbourg. He is also a certified Data Protection Officer (DPO) and participates in scientific conferences as a speaker. He is a regular contributor to scientific journals and the press and has also written a book on “Privatisation policy in economic crisis”.
General Secretary: Eleni M. Palioura, Lawyer
Resume: She comes from Elassona and graduated from the Law School of Athens. She has been a qualified lawyer since 2018 and has completed her legal traineeship at the legal service of the National Bank of Greece, at the legal service of the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece, as well as at the Greek Personal Data Protection Authority. Her postgraduate studies are on Ecclesiastical Law and the Canon Law of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches, while she is currently a PhD Candidate in Ecclesiastical Law (Law School of Athens). Her academic interests focus on human rights, with an emphasis on religious freedom issues, on which she publishes articles and remarks regularly, having at the same time published two books on the law of religious communities. She has been a member of the Greek Public Law Association since 2016 as well as member of the editorial board of its scientific journal “Public Law”. She has also been a member of the Board of the Association of Postgraduate Students and Doctoral Candidates of the Department of Social Theology and Religious Affairs (Athens), as well as a member of the board of the first Regional Youth Council in Thessaly in 2019 (Technology and Development Committee).
Board Member: Iakovos Sarmas, lawyer
Iakovos Sarmas is a qualified lawyer, and since 2019 he has been working as an associate at the law firm White & Case in Brussels, where he deals with competition law and other areas of European law. He is an honors graduate of the Athens School of Law and holds two LL.M. from Cambridge and Columbia law schools. He is a qualified lawyer in Athens, Brussels and New York and has published legal studies on competition law.
Communication Officer: Stella Tsagkaraki
Biography: Stella Tsagkaraki was born in Athens and graduated from the Law School of Athens. She subsequently completed her postgraduate studies at Panteion University, specializing in Regional Development. Stella has worked at the National Bank in the departments of organization and network operations, as well as serving as the head of the marketing department, specifically managing mass communication and advertising expenses (Media Liaison and Expenses Management).
Marketing Team: Maria Tsopra, Anna Pouliou