Marios Panayides is the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Energy, Commerce and Industry. He also served as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport and Youth. Before that, he served as District Officer of Nicosia from September 2013 to October 2019. He is a member of the board of Directors in many public benefit organizations and he has represented the Republic of Cyprus in European and International Committees, such as the Standing Committee for Construction, the European Committee of Competent Market Surveillance Authorities of Construction Products, the Consortium of European Building Control, the Steering Committee for Education Policy and Practice (Council of Europe) and the High-Level Group on Education and Training. He holds a Bachelor’s and a Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering (Structural Engineering), from the National Technical University of Athens. He has also obtained a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the Cyprus International Institute of Management. Since October 2015, he is a PhD candidate in the School of Engineering and Technology, Department of Civil Engineering and Geoinformatics, of the Cyprus University of Technology.