Athina Martinou was a unique figure in the growth of Greek shipping and is credited with providing the original entrepreneurial spark for what has become one of the shipping industry’s most successful dynasties.
In addition, her infectious and lifelong enthusiasm for shipping was widely recognised as emblematic of Greeks’ connection to the sea.
Often known simply by the nickname ‘Nounou,’ Martinou passed away at the age of 97 in 2024. Her prompt induction makes her the first woman elected to the Greek Shipping Hall of Fame in the 19 years since it was launched. She joins 43 male shipping luminaries in the industry’s pantheon.
Martinou was born in Athens in August, 1927. She came from the Methinitis family originating from the maritime island of Cephalonia and frequently referred to herself as a Kefalonitissa.
She grew up by the sea at the family’s home in the coastal suburb of Glyfada, together with her two brothers. From an early age she was fond of sailing off the south coast of Athens and was a keen fisherwoman.
The family used to watch passing merchant ships from the window of their home and she pledged to herself that they would have ships of their own.
She had a talent for languages at an early age, learning English and French, as well as some German and Russian. She graduated from the American College of Greece high school in Hellenikon in 1945, intending to study law in the US on a scholarship. However, her plans changed after meeting Athens antiques dealer Ioannis Martinos.
They married and had four children: Thanassis in 1950, Eleni in 1951, Constantinos in 1953, and Andreas in 1955. In addition to bearing and caring for her children, she helped her husband in the family’s well-known antiques shop in Monastiraki. However, her great love was the sea.
Both of her brothers, Melitis and Kleovoulos Methenitis, entered the maritime domain and they acquired their first ship in 1964 after Martinou informed them the vessel was available for purchase.
“It had been the dream of my family, the Methenitises, to own a ship,” Martinou later recalled. “This was a nice little boat, a real beauty, with three holds.” The day the ship was delivered in Piraeus was an event that still sent “shivers down my spine” decades later, she said.
A year later, in 1965, Martinou convinced her husband to purchase a first freighter of their own. This was the 10,000 ton steamship Mary, built in 1949, that she renamed Thanasis, after their eldest son. Her plan was for all three sons to become involved in the shipping business.
Martinou set up her initial office in the premises of the Methenitis brothers shipping operation that managed the Thanasis for the first year or so on her behalf. There she learned the ropes of the business, while son Thanassis – then 14 – became a frequent visitor, absorbing the various aspects of how a shipping business ran. Over the next several years, Martinou and her husband managed to buy a number of larger, younger ships, naming the first three of these after Eleni, Dinos and Andreas.
In 1971, Martinou formed the family’s own shipmanagement company under the name Thenamaris – an amalgam of the Greek initials of the four children, plus ‘maris’ – the sea.
One of the most significant and strongest decisions of Martinou’s life in shipping was to hand over the reins to her sons early, while they were all still at a very young age. The wisdom of the decision could not be challenged as Thenamaris grew into one of the leading shipping companies in Greece.
Martinou continued to go to the office daily, leading Thenamaris’ legal department. In the early 1970s she also negotiated critical bank finance that supported the expansion of the fleet.
In 1977, she lost her husband Ioannis at the age of 49. By then, Thenamaris’ fleet had grown to about 50 ships. She never remarried and instead devoted herself to her children, grandchildren, and the family shipping business. She also enjoyed cultivating pistachios, olives, and grapes on her estate at Anavyssos, as well as pursuing her lifelong passions of fishing and hunting.
Thanassis spun off his own company Eastern Mediterranean Maritime in 1991 and in 1996 Andreas followed with Minerva Marine. Middle brother Dinos continued at the helm of Thenamaris, that remained an industry leader.
All have independently thrived and in recent years they have been managing an aggregate of anything between 250 and 300 vessels at any given time. Martinou’s own philosophy was that “you can never have too many ships.”
In 2021, her granddaughter Ioanna Martinos established the Athina I. Martinou Foundation to provide grants and scholarships in social welfare, health, education, culture, and the environment, especially for issues related to the sea.
A number of her 14 grandchildren are now involved in the industry and are leading most of the family companies. They include Nikolas Martinos at Thenamaris and brother Ioannis who has established the Signal Group, Andreas’ son Andreas A. Martinos at Minerva, and Eleni’s sons Stefanos and Aris Koropoulis, who established Astra Shipmanagement in 2014.
Martinou herself continued going into the Thenamaris office into her 90s. She never stopped providing inspiration to the entire family with her energy, work ethic and devotion to shipping. She always preached that anything could be accomplished if you set your mind to it. “Things are easily done when you love them,” she said.
