Prime Minister Tony Abbot’s first point of call with the world leaders at the G20 summit was thanks to John Paraskevopoulos.
Dubbed the ‘official greeter’ of the summit, John was the middle man in formally introducing the prime minister to the world’s most prominent leaders.
Already having worked on the G20 summit for close to 18 months, the role was thrust upon the 47-year-old thanks to his foreign affairs experience.
Currently working as a senior adviser in the prime minister’s department for five and a half years, John was previously a director in the national security and intelligence branch of the department of foreign affairs.
As an official greeter, he had to quickly learn more than 30 correct titles and pronunciations for all the world leaders, a job that could easily end in national embarrassment.
“Every time a leader arrived I had to rehearse the correct title so you don’t cause offence,” John says.
“You can’t call a prime minister ‘Your Excellency’, that’s only for a head of state, usually like a president.
“But someone like the Crown Prince of Arabia, you can’t call them ‘Your Excellency’ [either] because you’ll offend them, they have to be ‘Your Royal Highness’.”
Over a couple of days, John was able to see first hand the personality traits that distinguished the leaders. Those that stood out were the ones that shattered stereotypes but also exuded a certain aura.
One of the most impressive world leaders John met was US President Barack Obama.
“People always talk about the star quality of someone like Obama,” he says.
“What impressed me about him was that he was warm and engaging, and he was the only leader of those that I met that asked for my name, and he was genuinely interested in me. It was a shock, because I was there to do all the introductions but he introduced himself to me first before I had a chance to speak.”
Amazingly, President Obama extended pleasantries to almost every staff member at the G20, whether they were big players or to a young girl controlling the lift.
“He broke away from the group and made a bee line for her and said “I just want to thank you for all your help today, you’ve done a great job”,” John says.
“She was just shaking, she didn’t expect it. She didn’t expect that sort of reception.”
While Obama carried the star power, no one made John more nervous than Russia’s president Vladimir Putin.
“I was very apprehensive about meeting Putin, he probably didn’t feel very welcome here given what’s happened, but he was actually somewhat understated in his demeanour – almost shy,” John reveals.
“I expected a tough guy persona which one often hears about but I was surprised to see quite the opposite on that occasion.”
John was also able to see how many of the politicians exuded high levels of charisma.
“The president of Mexico (Enrique Peña Nieto) is very very charismatic and charming. He’s the suavest man I’ve ever met,” John says.
“Then you had the very young Italian prime minster (Matteo Renzi), he’s only 39 but again he was quite casual and ‘Latin’ in his body language – winking at me and saying Buongiorno in Italian as we shook hands.”
Away from the leaders at the summit, the past 18 months have been undeniably a challenge for John.
Taking on the role as a member of the G20 taskforce and working alongside 160 people, the past week has been the culmination of more than two years’ work for his team.
Returning back to Canberra mid week, John is still in recovery mode from the G20.
“What’s next? I don’t know, I’m just relieved that there weren’t any major calamities,” he says with a laugh.
“When you try and bring that many people and that many leaders in such a short period of time the logistics are a nightmare but there was a lot of very good preparation for it and it went quite smoothly.”
Always connected to the government of the day, John has been an advisor on complex issues for more than 25 years.
Before his role in the prime minister’s office, he spent three years at Parliament House as the parliamentary liaison officer for the Senate, where he handled complex relationships to help facilitate the passage of important government legislation.
He was privy to sensitive negotiations at a very high level and had the job of providing accurate advice to the prime minister’s office, federal senators and senior officials on parliamentary procedures.
John’s contributions to the country haven’t gone unnoticed, as he received the National Australia Day Achievement Award for his contribution to the establishment of a new national heritage regime for Australia.