Born in Tinos, Kontogeorgis studied economics at the Supreme School of Economics and Business in Athens, and took a master's degree in the United States.

[1] He joined the Greek civil service, rising to become General Director of the Ministry of Commerce, but resigned from that post when the Greek junta took power after a coup in 1967.

In 1979, he was one of the signatories of the treaty by which Greece acceded to the EEC,[3] and in May 1980 the new prime minister George Rallis appointed Kontogeorgis to his cabinet as a minister without portfolio, with responsibility for relations with the EEC.

[4] In January 1981, Kontogeorgis took office as the European Commissioner for Transport, Fisheries and Tourism in the Thorn Commission.

He later served for two brief periods as Greece's Minister of National Economy and Tourism,[4] in late 1989 and early 1990.