Former Greek minister for Culture, Tourism and Sports Pavlos Yeroulanos and his sister Irini Yeroulanou, co-director of the Benaki Museum – both of whom are the great-grandchildren of the Benaki Museum founder Antonis Benakis – will be special guests at the launch of the ‘Gods, Myths & Mortals’ exhibition at the Hellenic Museum in Melbourne, on Wednesday 10 September.

The exhibition opens to the public on Friday 12 September and is part of a ten year collaboration between the Hellenic Museum in Melbourne and the Benaki Museum in Athens, aiming to bring 8,000 years of Greek civilisation to Melbourne.

Pavlos Yeroulanos was minister for Culture, Tourism and Sports in the Papandreou and Papademos governments, from October 2009 until May 2012. As minister he was instrumental in opening up new tourist markets for Greece in Russia, Israel and China, as well as in re-branding in a positive way the image of crisis hit Greece internationally.

Pavlos Yeroulanos studied history at Williams College in the USA and holds a Master of Public Administration from Harvard University and an MBA from MIT.

He was also Adviser to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, Secretary-General for Greeks Abroad, Director of the Political Bureau of the President of Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) George A. Papandreou and Secretary of Party Communications, acting as campaign manager for the European Parliament elections (June 2009) and the national elections (October 2009).