Textile industry pioneer Mouzakis dies at 93
The so-called father of the Greek textile industry, Eleftherios Mouzakis, died on Thursday at the age of 93. Born in Izmir in 1913, he began his career as an employee at an importing company when he was 18. A year later he became director of the 3 Asteres thread factory. In 1945 he founded Petalouda,»which from 1951 imported the high-quality French products DMC. The company merged in 1957 with Kithara, forming the Textile Industries of Greece, which grabbed the biggest share in the local sewing market. In 1968 he founded Mouzakis SA, which entered the stock market in 1991. Already from the 1970s Mouzakis’s companies started expanding their sales abroad, a trend which intensified in the 1990s. In recent years Mouzakis had withdrawn from the stage. He was active in the social sector, though, representing Greece in international business missions. He was a rare business leader who turned quality into a way of living.
