National Bank of Greece Hosts Meeting of Ombuds and Mediators

The National Bank of Greece Ombudsman’s Office hosted the European Ombudsman-Mediation Meeting in Athens on March 17-18 2016. The meeting brought together Ombuds from across different sectors including supranational organizations (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, World Health Organization), multinational private sector corporations (Mars Inc., OMV Petrom, NBG Group), consultancy firms (McKinsey & Co) and Ombuds services providers (RCC-Risk Communication Concepts).

The event was addressed by Mr. Dimitris Pavlakis, the Hellenic Ombudsman for Banking and Investment Services (HOBIS) who in his capacity as the Chairman of the E-Ben Hellas (European Business Ethics Network Hellas) Ambassadors Club advocated for the value of Ethics in business transactions and Ms Dimitra Triantafyllou, LLM, Mediator, Trainer of Mediators and CiARB Arbitrator who proposed alternative ways of delivering value to the organization.

During the event the NBG Ombudsman, Ms Konstantina Vitoratou, presented aspects of her practice and shared some thoughts about the possible effect of the evolving ADR landscape in the EU on the Ombuds function. The workshops that were held following each presentation offered “a lot of food for thought” and the participants seized the opportunity to delve into deep meaningful discussions on how best to increase the function’s ROI and promote its role in the organizational and corporate sectors. 

The participants agreed that it was a very good meeting in terms of substance and assessed different courses of action that may have to be explored in detail before the next meeting of the group that will be hosted by Transparency International in Berlin in October 2016. (Courtesy of Dina Vitorato.)

Related post: European Ombuds and Mediators to Gather in Switzerland.