Ambassador Loucas Tsilas Completes Tenure As Executive Director Of Onassis Foundation

Ambassador Loucas Tsilas

Ambassador Loucas Tsilas completed his 15-year tenure as Executive Director of the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation (USA) in January. The Ambassador, who is leaving his post in accordance with mandatory retirement rules, will remain in the United States and remain active in a teaching position at a New York area university. He will be honored on February 3, 2015 at a dinner hosted by the President and Treasurer of the parent Alexander S. Public Benefit Foundation, Dr. Anthony S. Papadimitriou.

Ambassador Tsilas, who has served in many diplomatic posts, including Consul in New Orleans, as the Ambassador of the Hellenic Republic to the United States in Washington, D.C. and as Director of the Diplomatic Office of the Prime Minister of Greece, expressed deep satisfaction with leaving his long diplomatic career to devote himself to the mission of the Onassis Foundation, which he described as “the multi-faceted promotion of the values of our Greek cultural heritage, not only in the United States, but throughout the Americas.” He also expressed a “deep love” for the Diaspora and noted that “Greece and America are united by the common struggle for democracy, freedom, human rights and the protection of religious and cultural diversity.”

George S. Tsandikos, Chairman of Leadership 100, expressed gratitude for the service of Ambassador Tsilas, whom he called “a friend and neighbor who was instrumental in forging an abiding relationship between the Onassis Foundation and Leadership 100.”

On October 24, 2000, the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation (USA) celebrated its inauguration and the opening of the Onassis Cultural Center, housed in The Olympic Tower at 645 Fifth Avenue in New York City. In 2005, Leadership 100 moved its offices to The Olympic Tower, becoming a neighbor of the Onassis Foundation and cooperating with it in promoting Hellenism in the premiere venue of Hellenic culture in the United States. The Onassis Foundation formally became a member of Leadership 100 in 2009.