Administration

OPEKA Governor

Epameinondas Atsaves

Epameinondas Atsaves was born and raised in Sparta. He is an attorney admitted to the Supreme Court of Greece and has been a member of the Athens Bar Association since 2003. He studied at the Law School of Democritus University of Thrace and holds a postgraduate degree (LLM) in Administrative Law from Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg (Germany). His thesis was titled “European Administrative Procedure.”

Since February 2010, he has served as an in-house salaried lawyer at the former IKA-ETAM, now e-EFKA. He has represented the organization in litigation concerning social insurance and pensions, benefits and administrative contracts, and has served on legislative initiative committees.

From September 2019 to December 2021, he served as Deputy Governor of the former Unified Auxiliary Social Security and Lump-Sum Benefits Fund (ETEAEP), and subsequently of the National Social Security Fund (e-EFKA). He supervised key organizational units, including the General Directorate of Public Sector Pensions, the General Directorate of Benefits and Health, the General Directorate of International Cooperation and the Directorate for the Handling of Reports.

During his tenure, he made a decisive contribution to the organization’s administrative and digital restructuring, reducing backlogs and speeding up the award of pensions and benefits.

From December 2021 to January 2025, he served as Chair of the Board and Governor of the Civil Servants’ Share Fund (MTYP). He contributed to extensive administrative and digital reorganization, the elimination of backlogs, faster award and payment of dividends, upgrades to information systems and digitization of the entire archive.

During his tenure, financing facilities for insured members were reintroduced after 2010, including low-interest loans and advance payment of dividends. For this work, MTYP received first prize in the General Secretariat for Information Systems and Digital Governance competition (announced in November 2025) for its “Automated Decision Issuance Process” project.

He writes for academic and daily publications on social security, welfare and labour law.

OPEKA Deputy Governor

Ioannis Karafyllis

Ioannis Karafyllis was born in Piraeus in 1965. He is married and has one child.

He holds a degree in Chemical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), a postgraduate degree from the University of Piraeus specializing in Supply Chain Management (Logistics), and a PhD from the University of Athens on e-procurement in public hospitals.

He served as an external lecturer in the University of Piraeus interdepartmental postgraduate programme in Health Unit Management; as Second Vice-President of the Hellenic Medicines Agency (EOF); and as an external consultant to Bundesbeschaffung (BBG), an adviser to the European Union, as an IT and Procurement external expert on the project “Technical Assistance for the Full Implementation of E-Catalogues in the Greek E-Procurement System.” He also served as Director of Satellite Programmes at the French Directorate General of Armaments (DGA) and as a business consultant.

He has worked in public-sector procurement departments and drafted technical specifications for many specialized materials and high-technology equipment.

For 25 years, he taught at universities, the National Centre for Public Administration and Local Government (EKDDA), INEP, private colleges and public vocational training institutes (IEKs). He speaks English.