Gold Magazine December 2013 - January 2014, Issue 33 | Página 82

A Day in the Life

Despina
Panayiotou
Theodosiou
The President of the Women’s
International Shipping & Trading
Association (WISTA) Cyprus is
looking forward to being a mother,
obtaining her MBA and seeing
Andrea Bocelli in concert.

“I need my sleep so I get

up around 7.30am and I run
errands before I come to the
office because once I’m at work,
I’m there for a long time. I don’t
have breakfast but I grab a coffee on the way to the office and
I have my second one when I
get there. I start at the Tototheo
Group, where I’m the Chief
Financial Operator, at 9.3010am, which probably sounds
late to many people but I finish
and sleep very late. And I’m now
6 and a half months pregnant
so I know that things are going
to change soon. Since this is
my first baby I don’t know how
realistic my ideas are of what will
happen but I have a business trip
planned for six weeks after I give
birth. I’m sure I’ll manage!
At the office, apart from going
through my e-mails and scheduling meetings for the afternoon,
I don’t really have a routine and
no two days are ever the same
which is one of the things I love
about my job. The other is the
fact that I get to travel a lot.
It’s something I’ve done and
enjoyed since I was a teenager
and I am glad that I still have the
chance.
My family was in shipping,
which is why I tried to avoid it!
I knew only too well how much
work it requires. When I was

younger I wanted to become a
psychologist but I changed my
mind when I was about 16 and
decided that I would like to be
an economist, which is why I
studied Economics. Right now
I am also studying in Denmark
for an Executive MBA in Shipping and Logistics. When I
started with this company, I
envisaged it as being for a short
time but I soon loved it and so
I am still here. I certainly have
no regrets about my choice of
career, despite the long hours.
For lunch I usually have
something to eat at my desk. If
not I am famished by the afternoon. I don’t cook at all – that
is something else that may have
to change very soon! I only go
out for lunch if I have business
meetings. I never leave work
before 8-9pm and then I work
from home. I usually go for
dinner with my husband and/
or colleagues and associates and
when we get home around 11, I
start work again, maybe until 2
in the morning.
The weekend is really the only
time I have to do the things I
like. So I spend time with my
husband, we go out, visit friends,
etc. I used to do a lot of sport but
I don’t have time for it anymore.
I was once a member of the national Judo team and I exercised

This is what I’m
reading these days

82 Gold the international investment, finance & professional services magazine of cyprus

Favourites: Morgan Freeman, Meryl Streep, Andrea Bocelli

for up to 8 hours a day. Now I
may not exercise for weeks but I try
to walk when I get a chance.
I like reading, especially on
politics. At the moment I’m reading a book about the first Prime
Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan

Yew, whom I quite admire,
although he is a rather controversial figure. He was the one
who transformed Singapore
from a third world country to
what it is today. If I could live
somewhere else I would choose
Singapore and if it wasn’t for
the weather, I could happily
live in Copenhagen too.
I enjoy listening to most
types of music except heavy
metal and I especially like
crossover opera so I have all the
Pavarotti & Friends concerts
on DVD and CD. I regret that
I never managed to see Pavarotti ‘live’ which is why I want
to make sure that one day I get
a chance to see Andrea Bocelli
in concert.
I love the cinema too,
though I only go 2-3 times
a year now. My favourite actors are Morgan Freeman and
Meryl Streep.
Being President of WISTA
Cyprus takes a lot of my time
– maybe 1-2 hours a day – and
although shipping has always
been a male-dominated sector everywhere, since starting
WISTA I have discovered that
Cyprus is much more forwardthinking and open-minded
about women in business than
I used to think. Being elected
to the Board of the Cyprus
Shipping Chamber was something of a surprise, not so
much because I am a woman
but because I am only 32.This
is too young to say that I have
no ambitions left but the main
one, both personally and professionally, is to be the best I
can be. My first priority now is
to be a good mother. I start in
March!”