The new Nottingham Forest CEO is Theodore Giannikos. The club have confirmed that the Greek executive has taken over as chief executive officer from 1 September, arriving after a career spanning FIFA, Olympiacos and European football’s biggest committee rooms. He replaces Lina Souloukou, who stepped down at the end of last season after 18 months at the City Ground.
Who is the new Nottingham Forest CEO?
Giannikos arrives with what the club describe as more than 20 years of senior-level experience in international football, alongside a background in law, governance and business development. He is a graduate of the London School of Economics and has, per the club statement, “lived and worked in several countries both within and outside Europe”.
Most recently he spent a decade at FIFA, latterly as Director of Strategic Partnerships & Media Projects, having previously held the posts of Director of Legal Strategic Projects and Director of Member Associations Services at world football’s governing body.
Before Zurich came nine years at Olympiacos, where he served as Vice President and a board member – the Greek club owned, like Forest, by Evangelos Marinakis. He was also an executive board member of the European Club Association between 2012 and 2016, a Court of Arbitration for Sport arbitrator, a member of several UEFA committees and a board member of European Leagues.
In short: a lawyer and administrator who has sat on the other side of most of the tables Forest now need to negotiate across, from broadcast deals to regulatory disputes.
What the club said
Forest’s official statement charged Giannikos with overseeing the delivery of the club’s “long-term ambitions, both on and off the pitch” – boardroom language, but pointed language given what is sitting in the in-tray.
“He brings more than 20 years of senior-level experience across international football, together with extensive legal, governance and business development expertise,” the statement read, as reported by the Nottingham Post.
Why the timing matters
The appointment lands 24 hours after the summer transfer window shut, and it is hard to imagine a busier moment to inherit a Premier League club.
Forest spent a reported £101m across the window on five first-team signings – Xaver Schlager, Ousmane Diomande, Steven Benda, club-record striker Liam Delap and, on 31 August, Daniel Muñoz from Crystal Palace. You can read every in and out of the window here. Six players went the other way on loan on deadline day alone, including Morato, Zach Abbott and Omari Hutchinson.
Off the pitch, the club reached a draft agreement in August on the long-running City Ground expansion, the single biggest infrastructure project in Forest’s modern history and one that has stalled repeatedly over land ownership. Delivering it is now a CEO problem.
Then there is the football. Oliver Glasner, appointed on 6 July after Vitor Pereira’s departure, is still waiting for a first win of 2026/27: beaten at home by Leeds United in the league and again by Leeds in the Carabao Cup, before a creditable 2-2 draw at Liverpool in which Dan Ndoye and Morgan Gibbs-White scored and Delap made his debut. Tottenham Hotspur visit the City Ground on Saturday at 3pm.
Stability, at last?
The wider point for supporters is continuity, or the lack of it. Souloukou’s 18-month tenure was itself brief, and the CEO role has changed hands more than once in the Marinakis era. A chief executive with FIFA and ECA experience, and an existing relationship with the ownership through Olympiacos, is at least a signal that this hire is meant to last longer than the last one.
Forest have not attached a timeframe to Giannikos’s remit, and the club made no further comment beyond the statement. What is clear is that he starts with a rebuilt squad, a new head coach, a stadium project in motion and a team that has yet to win a game. The Reds’ new man does not get an easing-in period.
