Ms Georgiadou is the Managing Director of Cyprus Seeds, responsible for the design and implementation of the program. Between 2014 and 2017, Maria was a full-time consultant with Bank of Cyprus in matters relating to innovation and entrepreneurship; in this capacity, she initiated and coordinated IDEA, the first Accelerator-Incubator Program in Cyprus which supports the creation of Cypriot start-ups Maria has 25 years of experience with the Cyprus Development Bank. At cdbbank, she headed for 8 years the International Banking Unit, she set up the EU Unit of the bank and attracted EU grants for SMEs in Cyprus. During her last 3 years at the Bank, she was Head of Business Development & Marketing of the cdb Group. Prior to joining cdbbank, Maria worked in the European Commission in Brussels for one year. She is an evaluator for the HORIZON 2020 program, SME Instrument, which supports the commercialization of innovative research. For 12 years, she is one of the two partners of the World Economic Forum in Cyprus for the production of its annual Global Competitiveness Report. Maria studied in the US, with Fulbright scholarship, and got a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Oxford, UK.