Institute Fellows

Despina Yannouli Soukakou is an Accredited Mindfulness Teacher from Breathworks (UK) and the Oxford Mindfulness Center. She’s trained to teach Mindfulness for Stress, Pain, Cancer, Mindful Eating, Mindful Movement, as well as Mindfulness in the Workplace. Her teachings are enriched by her training in Deep Listening and Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness.
Despina’s 25 years in senior positions in FORTUNE 500 FMCG’s, and her long-standing meditation practice, combined with her intensive training in Mindfulness-Based Interventions at the highest level, enable her to skillfully relate the concepts and practices to a wide range of populations in Greece and abroad.
She is teaching classes live and online, in Greek and English, for healthcare, corporate, and community groups. She is passionate about helping people live with emotional balance and a sense of well-being. She monitors the results of her work with validated q’res (the SFMPQ, the WEMWBS, and the WHO-5) which consistently demonstrate the positive effects of the programs on participants’ lives. The same results have been announced at Annual Healthcare Conferences, and her Mindfulness for Pain course has become part of the curriculum on “Alternative and Complementary Therapies for Pain Management” at the eLearning platform of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
Despina has served the ACS Board of Trustees (as her son is now an ACS graduate, and her daughter is currently in 11th grade). She has also volunteered at the Youth2Youth program, and she received the Arete Award back in 2010.
Today she makes the time to be with loved ones and with people who need her, she finds peace when reading and walking in nature, and she ‘mindfully’ cooks delicious meals as a way to nurture the mind and the body.
You can see more about Despina and her work here and her listing in Breathworks’ global directory here.