Yanis Varoufakis is an economist, author, and former Greek Minister of Finance. He gained international recognition in 2015 as a member of Alexis Tsipras' cabinet, when he played a central role in European financial negotiations during the euro crisis and drew global attention to Greece's economic challenges. Born in Athens in 1961, Varoufakis studied economic mathematics at the University of Essex and mathematical statistics at the University of Birmingham. He received his PhD in economics in 1987 and subsequently taught at the universities of Cambridge, East Anglia, Glasgow and Sydney before being appointed professor of economics at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in 2000. From 2004 to 2006, he advised the then Greek Prime Minister Giorgos Papandreou, later working as an economist and analyst for, among others, the US software company Valve Corporation. Research stays took him to the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas in Austin. After resigning from his post as finance minister, Varoufakis founded the pan-European democracy movement DiEM25 - Democracy in Europe Movement in 2016, which campaigns for transparency, social justice and more democratic participation in the European Union. From 2019 to 2023, he was chairman of the resulting MeRA25 party and a member of the Greek Parliament. Today, he teaches at the University of Athens, continues to be active within DiEM25, and regularly publishes new books on economics, politics, and society. In 2017, the University of Sussex awarded him an honorary doctorate. Since the beginning of the global financial crisis, Yanis Varoufakis has been concerned with the structural causes of economic imbalances and the future of Europe. His book The Global Minotaur, which has been translated into several languages, made him famous far beyond academic circles. As a columnist and commentator, he writes for international media such as the New York Times and the Boston Review and is a regular guest on television programmes and in international debates on economic and social issues. Yanis Varoufakis stands for intellectual independence, analytical sharpness and the courage to speak uncomfortable truths. In his lectures, he talks about the major economic and social issues of our time, the future of Europe, responsibility in politics and the role of humans in a globalised economy.