People
Meet our Performa team of skilled consultants, facilitators and … performers!
Dimis Michaelides
Dimis is a consultant and creativity leader, speaker and magician, who combines his unique talents and business experience to inspire and entertain around the world.
He works in the areas of creativity and innovation, strategy, marketing, leadership and people and is MD of Performa Consulting and Visiting Lecturer at Queen Mary, London University. He has presented and led workshops at numerous creativity forums including the Creative Education Foundation (USA), CREA (Europe) and the Africa Creativity Conference. He works as a speaker and creativity leader on a regular basis with organizations of all styles and sizes. His clients include Munich Re, Bayer, Sociéte Générale, PepsiCo, Generali, Bank of Cyprus, CYTA, PriceWaterhouseCoopers and IBM.
Dimis has extensive international experience in General Management, Marketing and Finance and has led three mergers. He has held fulltime posts at the World Bank, Zeneca, the Council of Europe Development Bank and was, most recently, CEO of Laiki Cyprialife, the largest insurance company in Cyprus.
Dimis holds a first degree from the LSE (B.Sc) and postgraduate degrees from the Sussex University (MA) and London Business School (MBA). He is fluent in Greek, English and French, operational in Spanish and Portuguese.
Dimis loves creativity and innovation, performing magic, singing and playing the guitar, his wife and son, his mother and brother, Penn and Teller. And he enjoys art, cinema, theatre, travel, reading, swimming, good food, the circus and street performers.
Iacovos Christofides
Iacovos, or Akis as he likes to be called, is a consultant, facilitator, trainer and coach with the passion and ability to inspire people and transfer knowledge through play and paradigm.
He works in the areas of strategy, leadership, teamwork, creativity and innovation, and process design. He is a seasoned professional with extensive business experience, both in industry and as a management consultant, in Cyprus and abroad. He describes himself as a creative yet practical person who thrives in challenging, complex business environments.
Iacovos works with organizations of all sizes both in the private and public sector, helping managers develop their management, leadership and innovation skills. He has also implemented projects related to process and methods improvements in the manufacturing and trading sectors. His clients include BAT, CYTA, Malouppas & Papakostas, MPM, Tetrapack, WagerLogic, Cyprialife and the Academy of Public Administration.
He has worked both in the USA and Cyprus, in the areas of logistics, human resources management, and general management. He has had full time posts with Hyperion Systems Engineering, Apola Human Solutions, Deloitte and Touche, and Gross and Associates. Since 2004, Iacovos has collaborated with Performa in the delivery of consulting, training and coaching engagements.
Iacovos holds a BSc in Industrial Engineering from Rutgers University, USA, and an MBA (Management of Innovation) from the Graduate School of Management, Rutgers University, USA. He is fluent in Greek and English, and has basic knowledge of French and Spanish.
Akis loves working with people and discovering what drives and inspires them. He is married to Katerina, a performing arts school director that is his inspiration and soul mate. He enjoys the cinema, music, musicals, reading, travelling adventures and explorations, electronic gadgets and computers, cars and motor sports and good food.
Marios Nicolaou
Marios is a consultant and trainer who always applies creativity and imagination to his training and consulting activities.
Marios is the newest addition to the Performa team. He is involved in training and consultancy for a range of organizations irrespective of size. He draws from his expertise in the areas of management, leadership, communication and team building. He is involved in the introduction of new Performa projects such as expanding innovation and development to new areas such as education. He has worked on projects with audit firms including, Baker Tilly, Kyprianides, Nicolaou & Associates, the audit office of Cooperative Societies and other major industry clients including CYTA and Lukoil.
Marios started his career as an accountant and he is a Fellow member of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants (FCCA). He holds an MBA from Manchester Business School and he is a PhD candidate for sports management.
Marios has wide experience and expertise in strategic management, finance and financial and cost accounting. He has worked as a manager and trainer for professionals both locally and abroad during his employment with Intercollege Professional Studies, Nicosia, and before that he worked as an auditor for Deloitte & Touche and Ernst & Young in Nicosia.
Marios is a talented and devoted recreational artist and an avid triathlete. He is a member of the Cyprus Triathlon Federation and dedicates any spare time to his grueling training regime which enables him to compete. He is married to Haroulla, who teaches professional accountancy courses at Intercollege. Together, they have two wonderful and energetic boys, Paris aged seven, and Nicholas, two, with whom they share the adventures of life.
Helen Ellinopoulou
Helen is the Office Manager for Performa Consulting Ltd. She is a multi-talented multi-tasking individual who is able to ensure that the Performa Office runs smoothly at all times. She tends to all of the administration aspects of the office whilst also organizing the Performa’s “Out of the Box Club”, arranging all of the workshop/ seminar materials, coordinating course bookings plus much more. Helen’s love at work is to apply an original and very high quality artistic feel to all of the Performa handouts and publications. She speaks English and basic Greek.
Helen left Loughton College – FE, England with Distinctions in Office Management. Throughout her working years she has attended many courses which have kept her updated in her role of Office Manager: Appraisal Writing, Successful Managing and Management, Supervisory Skills plus extensive training on a wide range of PC software applications.
Over the years Helen has gained extensive experience in office administration, systems project development work, graphics and secretarial departments, also devising and facilitating in-house software training courses.
Before joining Performa as Office Manager, Helen worked for several organizations in London: the Sterling/Foreign Settlements Department for Trade Development Bank (Swiss Bank), as Report Writing Manager for KPMG , and as Office Manager/Administrator for The Insurance Ombudsman Bureau.
Helen is the proud mother of two wonderful children (Jessie & Simon) who benefit from the creativity skills that she has been enriched with whilst working at Performa. She relaxes in a way that would make many people tired – competing in triathlons, running with a running club, swimming before work, playing with her children, cooking happily despite hit-and-miss results, and finally unwinding at the end of the day with a good book.