Born into a poor Greek Cypriot farming family at the village of Pedoulas on September 15, 1927, Haji-Ioannou was the eldest of 12 children.
His uncle, a trader, hired him as an accountant before appointing him as manager of his office in Saudi Arabia.
When his uncle died, Haji-Ioannou started his own import-export business in Saudi Arabia.
At the time it was complicated to trade in the Kingdom without a local partner and he became one of the few foreign businessmen to achieve that.
While living in London, until 1965, he built a fleet of more than 20 cargo vessels and became an important client of British shipbrokers, especially Clarkson plc.