George Pappas, the first university Chancellor of Greek heritage to be appointed in Australia, will step down at the end of 2019, after almost a decade at the helm of Victoria University.
“I am an Australian, I am a Victorian, I am a Melburnian but I have a Greek heritage,” Pappas told the Australian Greek newspaper Neos Cosmos in 2010 interview, after his appointment as chancellor.
“Greece is very important to me. I go back every two or three years and reconnect,” the chancellor said.
Born in Rhodes, Greece, Pappas immigrated to Australia in 1952. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economics with First Class Honours from Monash University in 1968 and an MBA, with Distinction, from Harvard Business School in 1971.
He later joined the international management consulting firm The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in Boston, and later moved to Tokyo. He returned to Australia and co-founded Pappas Carter Evans and Koop (PCEK) in 1979.
Over the next ten years, PCEK became the leading Australian management consultancy firm, providing strategic advice to the top management of the nation’s largest companies.
Following the Boston Consulting Group’s acquisition of PCEK in 1990, Pappas became Managing Partner of BCG’s Australasian offices and a member of its worldwide executive committee.
Pappas was appointed Chancellor of Victoria University in 2010.
Throughout his term, the business focus he brought to the post helped establish the university as an influential forum on the debate over the state’s economic future.
While performing his duties involving the direction and superintendence of VU, Pappas also served as chair of the Committee for Melbourne, and in 2016 he was appointed an Officer in the Order of Australia in recognition of his service to the community.
He was recognized for the many roles he had played in tertiary education, medical research, defense organizations and business support.
Pappas’ successor in the role of university chancellor will be former Victorian Premier Steve Bracks.
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