Kyprianou is a trained expert in questions of international law, especially tax law, and a master when it comes to bean counting and crunching numbers. Born on Jan. 22, 1960, Kyprianou studied law in Athens before crossing the English Channel to Britain, where he obtained a master's degree in tax law at Cambridge University. Afterward, he crossed the big pond to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he received a master’s of law at Harvard University. Today he is an associate member of the prestigious American Bar Association and a member of the Harvard Law School Association for Europe.

After completing his studies, Kyprianou went straight into politics as a trainee at the Human Rights Commission of the Council of Europe. In 1986 he became a member of the Central Committee of the Democratic Party (DIKO) in Cyprus. He became a member of parliament representing the Greek Cypriot capital, Nicosia, in 1991. A decade later, in 2001, he was appointed to his first-ever cabinet-level post as Cyprus’s finance minister.