Ex-Bulgarian envoy to Azerbaijan takes helm of IGB gas pipeline operator photo

Former Bulgarian ambassador to Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan Maya Hristova has been appointed executive director of ICGB, the company that operates the Greece–Bulgaria gas interconnector (IGB), the operator said in a response to a query from domestic media.

ICGB said the appointment follows the expiry of the mandates of the previous management and supervisory bodies and comes after the company completed a structured update of its corporate governance system.

The overhaul covered both the Supervisory Board and the Management Board, including two executive director positions. The process of nominating and electing new board members by ICGB’s two shareholders began in November 2025.

According to the company, all candidates were subject to mandatory review and approval by the national energy regulators of Greece and Bulgaria. The appointments became effective once the relevant changes were registered in the Commercial Register, which occurred in early 2026.

Alongside Hristova, Pierros Chatzigiannis was also appointed executive director. Both executives have been appointed for four-year terms.

Hristova concluded her diplomatic mission in Azerbaijan in November 2017 and, in February 2018, took up the post of Bulgaria’s consul general in New York. She later served as Bulgaria’s deputy minister of energy and as executive director of the Bulgarian Energy Holding.

Chatzigiannis brings more than 25 years of technical and managerial experience in natural gas and energy infrastructure. He has held senior roles within Greece’s national gas transmission system, with experience as both a transmission system operator and a distribution system operator.

Hristova and Chatzigiannis replace Teodora Georgieva of Bulgaria and George Satlas of Greece, who served as ICGB’s executive directors from 2020 to 2025.

The IGB pipeline links Greece’s gas transmission system, operated by DESFA, and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline near Komotini with Bulgaria’s Bulgartransgaz system near Stara Zagora. The 182-kilometre pipeline has a diameter of 813 millimetres and a design capacity of 3 billion cubic meters of gas per year, which can be expanded to 5 billion cubic meters annually, subject to market demand and the necessary technical conditions.

By Tamilla Hasanova