At the age of 35, Stefanos Kasselakis, an openly gay Greek-American with a background as a former Goldman Sachs banker and a successful shipping company owner, has emerged as an unexpected leader in Greece's main opposition party, the left-wing Syriza.
This is the remarkable rise of Stefanos Kasselakis, a math prodigy who studied at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School before starting a career with Goldman Sachs and eventually amassing wealth as a shipping industry entrepreneur.
In a surprising turn, Kasselakis secured victory in a contest to lead Syriza, Greece's primary opposition party and one of the few left-wing political parties in the European Union to have recently held power.
His win garnered admiration, bewilderment, and concern, as he achieved this feat just a month after announcing his unexpected candidacy for the Syriza leadership. Leveraging social media, he captured the imagination of Syriza's members and comfortably defeated Effie Achtsioglou, a 38-year-old lawmaker and former labour minister, in a runoff election. Approximately 136,000 Greeks participated in the vote.
Before Kasselakis entered the race, Achtsioglou had been the clear frontrunner to succeed former Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who resigned following Syriza's significant defeat in May's elections.
Kasselakis was seen as emblematic of a "post-politics" era, as he ascended to the leadership without engaging in debates or interviews, instead relying on a continuous stream of social media posts featuring his American partner, his gym routines, his dog, and his coffee preferences.
MacroPolis, a Greek political analysis firm, noted that Kasselakis led Syriza into uncharted territory. He has revealed little about his political beliefs and has not delved into policy ideas in detail during his campaign, but his positions often appeared centrist rather than leftist.
It appears that Syriza voters were won over by Kasselakis' central argument that he can effectively challenge Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, another highly educated former investment banker with strong ties to the United States. Mitsotakis, from a prominent Greek political family, is serving his second term as prime minister. He defeated Syriza in 2019, promising to revive Greece's struggling economy. Mitsotakis, who studied at Harvard and Stanford, speaks four languages and previously worked at Chase Bank and McKinsey and Company, a global management consulting firm, before establishing a private equity and venture capital fund.
Kasselakis based his claim on being more intelligent, successful, and even speak better English than the prime minister, which resonated with many of his supporters.
MacroPolis suggested that Tsipras played a significant role in Kasselakis' election.
Nevertheless, Kasselakis' ascendancy to the leadership of Syriza, a former Goldman Sachs investment banker, has shocked many on the left in Greece, raising concerns that the left-wing opposition may become more fragmented.
For instance, Euclid Tsakalotos, a former finance minister during Syriza's time in government, emphasized the importance of remaining loyal to the party's leftist principles, refraining from congratulating Kasselakis on his win.
"Syriza voters are frustrated to the point of despair," said Giorgos Karelias, an opinion writer for Greek news outlet News24/7. "Desperate voters don't listen to anything. They don't care if the person they elect has nothing to do with the left."
Karelias expressed puzzlement at how Syriza voters put their trust in a political novice who offered few details about his beliefs and positions. He criticized Kasselakis for being devoid of substance.
"Desperate voters aren't looking for content," Karelias mused. "After all, they saw that the content of their party in recent years led it to an electoral crash. So, now they bypass that and only look at the shiny face. It's new, whatever."
Chrystalla Chatzidimitriou, an opinion writer for Phileleftheros, a Cypriot newspaper, also viewed Kasselakis as a style-over-substance figure.
"In Greece, people are already talking about post-politics," she wrote. "A man appears out of nowhere. Handsome with a model's figure. Young, just 35 years old, is a golden boy from America. He knows how to make the most of modern media and promotes what he wants to promote."
She added, "Without inhibitions, he proclaims his sexual identity. He demands the separation of church and state, and when his critics ask him about his professional past at Goldman Sachs, he answers: 'If I hadn't worked for capital, I wouldn't understand [Mitsotakis'] arrogance.'"
Kasselakis, a Miami resident, was a gifted math prodigy who attended an exclusive Greek school before receiving a scholarship to the Phillips Academy, a prep school in Andover, Massachusetts. He earned another scholarship to attend the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, where he obtained a B.S. in finance and a B.A. in International Relations.
He worked at Goldman Sachs and later founded a successful shipping company. According to the Associated Press, shipping news service Tradewinds has referred to him as a "distressed asset maestro" who sold all five ships owned by his company at a significant profit in 2022.
