Leadership 100’s Founding Members will be honored with the Archbishop Iakovos Leadership 100 Award for Excellence at the 25th Anniversary Celebration Conference to be held at The Ritz-Carlton San Juan Hotel, Carolina, Puerto Rico February 5 to 8, 2009.

The Life-Time Founding Members are Arthur C. Anton, Andrew A. Athens, George K. Chimples, Peter M. Dion and Michael Jarharis. George P. Kokalis, also a Founding Member, passed away June 24, 2008. Another Founding Member, Thomas A. Athens, died in June of 2002. The latter two will be awarded posthumously.

The Award was established by the Archbishop Iakovos Leadership 100 Endowment Fund, Incorporated in honor of its visionary founder, the late Archbishop Iakovos, and is bestowed on outstanding Greek and Greek American leaders who have excelled in the pursuit of their vocation and exhibited the gift of leadership. In special circumstances, and in the spirit of Philhellenism, the Award is given to an outstanding leader, regardless of religion or national background, who has exemplified the universal values and ideals of Orthodoxy and Hellenism.

Previous recipients were George J. Tenet, Senator Paul S. Sarbanes and Yanni in 2003; Melina Kanakaredes and John D. Negroponte in 2004; Senator Olympia J. Snowe in 2005; Dimitris L. Avramopoulos in 2006; Rudolph W. Giuliani in 2007; and Theodore Angelopoulos and Ambassador Gianna Angelopoulos Daskalaki in 2008.