Greek PM Alexis Tsipras's path to power

In 1990, a then 16-year-oldAlexis Tsipraswas being interviewed as one of a number of young Greek activists who had led a revoltagainst their schools, part of aprotest around proposed educationreforms.

"We would like it to be our right to decide if, at some point, we want to skip class," Tsiprassaid, according to theSpanish newspaper ElMundo.

No surprise then that, nearly 25years later, Greek's current prime ministeris still thumbing his nose at authority, this timeagainsttheEuropean powerbrokers who hold the economic fate of his country in their hands.

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It was this message of defiance, of saying enough to the austerity measures imposed on Greece, that helpedsweephim and his self-proclaimed radicalleft-wing coalitioninto office in January, which led ultimately to thesubstantial "No" victory in the weekend's referendum

It was a victory to be surethough muted by the hugefinancial crunch his country faces.

Within days, Greek banks could be out of cash, unless those same politicalcharms that endeared Tsipras to Greek votersconvincehisskeptical creditors to part with more financial aid.

"I'm a compromiser because I want to have realistic goals,"Tsipras told the Financial Times in January."At the same time, I'm very decisive if I know it's necessary to have a fight."

Youngest PM in some time

At age40, Tsipras isthe country's youngestprime minister in over a century and a half. And while he hasbeen a political animal since his teens, joining the youth wing of the Communist Partyat age 14, he had a different career path planned, to become an engineer andwork in theconstruction business like his father.

Tsipras was born in Athens to a middle class family, and afather , "whowas solidly a man of the centre, voting regularly for the social democraticPanhellenicSocialist Movement (Pasok)," according to the Times.

When he left high school, he also dropped out of the Communist youth, but remained active in student politics at the NationalPolytechnic University of Athens,according toEl Mundo.

"He was always decisive and a pragmatist, a doer",Andreas Karitzis, a member of Syriza's Central Committee and a fellow student with Tsipras at the Polytechnic,told El Mundo. "He had an uncanny ability to identify achievable goals and do whatever necessary to achieve them."

At the time, Tsipraswanted tostudy civil engineering andfollow in thefootsteps of his father who ran a small construction company in Athens, the Times said.

After graduating he didworkas a civil engineer in the construction industry, but soon joined the youth chapter of the small leftist partySynaspismos, which eventually morphed intoSyriza (also known as the Coalition of the Radical Left).

He rose up the ranks of Synaspismos, soimpressing party officials that in 2006he was asked to represent the party and the new Syriza coalition as a mayoral candidate for Athens.

Although there was some concerns expressed within the partyabout his relativeyouth, he specificallytargetedthat demographic in the election, boostingthe parties fortunes and receiving 11 per cent of the vote, finishing in third place.

"That was the boom,"Dimitris Tzanakopoulos, a Syriza legal adviser, told theTimes. "His whole life changed."

A national figure

At that point,Tsipras was a national figure in Greece and two years laterwould become leader of Syriza, even as hispolitics are said to have moderated since his Communist youth days.

Luke March, an expert on radical left and post-Soviet politics at the University of Edinburgh, told Business Insiderthat Tsipras's "role has been as a leader who is able to present himself as principled but pragmatic, a conciliator and statesmanlike."

It was an image that heldwhenGreeks went to the polls earlier this year and were unswayed bythen primeministerAntonisSamaras's best efforts to portray his opponentasa radicalcommunist.

Tsipras'election ushered in a number of firsts thefirst time the country would beruled by a party other thanthe right-leaning New Democracy orleft-of-centre PASOK; thefirst time an incoming prime minister would not take a religious oath (Tsipras is an avowed athiest). And it was the first time Greece elected an unmarried prime minister.

Tsipras has been with his high-school sweetheartPeristera 'Betty'Batzianafor two decades. The couple has two sons, (one of whom, Orpheus Ernesto, is named after the Cuban guerilla fighterErnesto"Che"Guevera) and for years had beenliving in a rented apartment in Athens.

He may have also been the first prime minister, at least in recent times, to not wear a necktie during the oath of office.

For Tsipras, it is a casual style that voters are familiar with. And one he plans to continue, he has joked, until the country gets some debt relief,meaning hisneck could be bare for the foreseeable future.