Education
Vassar College.
Vassar College.
He is included in the Lloyd"s List Most influential people in the shipping industry. He majored in economics at Vassar College in the United States. He was the first Greek driver in Acropolis Rally for five years from 1988 to 1992.
Since his retirement from the sport, in 1993, he works in the family business(Vardinogiannis group of companies), which has interests in oil, shipping, television broadcasting, publishing, banking et cetera
The Vardinogiannis family owns the multi-billion oil refining company Motor Oil Hellas, in whose Board of Directors is Yannis Vardinogiannis, and also serves shipping company Avin International South America, and Piraeus Bank. He is the principal shareholder of the Cairo-based Vegas Oil and Gas.
On 22 April 2008, main shareholder Vardinogiannis gave a press conference in which he announced the decision of his family to reduce their share in the club to 50% – after 30 years of full ownership – through a €800 million increase of the company"s capital stock. After the negotiations and the share capital increase, the Vardinogiannis family would hold 56% of the club, Panathinaikos Athlitikos Omilos 10% and the rest shareholders 34%.
The Vardinogiannis family finally withdrew from Panathinaikos in 2012.
The team had the following successes as an owner of Panathinaikos: - Quarter-finals in Champions League: 2001-2002 - Quarter-finals in Uefa Cup: 2002-2003 - Greek Championship: 2004, 2010 - Greek Cup: 2004, 2010.
In February 2015 Vardinogiannis said in a statement to Reuters that the new Prime Minister of Greece Alexis Tsipras had a valid point in attacking the corrupted Greek oligarchs.