Date of birth: 14/2/1967 Industries: Travel 2006 est. wealth: £727m
Stelios Haji-Ioannou, who always goes by his first name, was born in Greece and is the middle child of a shipping tycoon. He attended high school in Athens followed by a degree at the London School of Economics. In 1991, whilst he was just 24 and serving as CEO of his father's shipping business, Stelios was rapidly taught a harsh lesson about safety, when an ageing oil tanker blew up off the coast of Genoa, killing five crew members. Stelios was charged with manslaughter and although the charges were dismissed it is an experience he has carried with him.
Such background and life lessons have ultimately stood Stelios in good stead. His canny appreciation of low prices led him to examine the success of Southwest Airlines. The result was the start of easyJet in 1995, based at Luton airport. It pitched itself as the low-cost, no frills option and quickly gained huge publicity. At the outset, the concept of servicing a flight without complementary drinks and snacks was revolutionary and prices were lower than ever. Stelios has a knack of keeping his business interests in the public eye and he capitalised on this by inviting a TV company to make the reality series Airline about easyJet. Today, easyJet is Europe's biggest low-fare carrier, flying 15 million people a year.
Stelios has not rested on his flying laurels however. He has established the easyGroup of companies which all focus on low costs and "sweating the assets". This means having a high turnover, be it with a plane or a car, to gain maximum use out of it for the company's money. The easyGroup business practice also has a key element, that of sophisticated yield management, a software driven system that varies prices according to demand, once again maximising the potential of any asset and encouraging customers to buy early.
Stelios launched easyCar in April 2000, with the intention of providing an easy-to-use car hire service at a low cost. EasyCar has been joined by easyInternetCafé, with 34 internet cafés and the same low cost principles. In 2003 Stelios launched easyCinema which operates a 10-screen multiplex cinema in Milton Keynes and pay-as-you-go online DVD rental, which is proving to be another success. In fact, the easyGroup formula has successfully carried through into many new and varied areas, with 15 companies including easyMobile, easyHotel, easyPizza and easy4men toiletries. As the group grows, Stelios naturally loves to make it all look easy.
In November 2006 Stelios received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II for services to entrepreneurship. Also in 2006 he sold his private art collection, which once filled the walls of the now sold Stelmar Shipping, for a total of €730,000 , the proceeds of which went to a Greek children's charity
