The university's leadership, including its first president, Chris Spirou, and most faculty members, reside in Greece.
Initial funding for the university came from the Hellenic American Union (HAU), a non-profit Greek association established in 1957 with U.S. government encouragement to promote U.S.-Greek educational and cultural relations, including through English-language teaching and testing.
The university shares use of the classrooms, library, cafe, and other facilities of the Union in central Athens.
[2] Article 16 of the Greek Constitution prohibits the establishment of university-level institutions by private persons.
Over the ensuing six years, the institution evolved steadily from its initial identity as a business school to its beginnings as a fully developed university: with NH-PEC approval, it developed and implemented twelve more degree programs: a Professional Master's in Business Administration (PMBA), a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (BSBA), a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology (BSIT), a Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics (MAAL), a Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Literature (BAELL), a Master of Science in Information Technology (MSIT), a Master of Arts in Translation (MAT), a Bachelor of Music (BM), a Bachelor of Science in Psychology (BSPSY), an Associate of Science in Enterprise Network Administration (ASENA), and a Master of Arts in Conference Interpretation (MACI).