Yiannis Kourtoglou was born in 1981 in Xanthi, Greece. He initially studied Business Administration in Tourism but in 2009, he decided to get more involved in photography and started attending seminars at the Stereosis photographic centre in Thessaloniki, Greece.
Since 2010, he has devoted himself exclusively to photojournalism. In 2012, Kourtoglou moved to Cyprus where he began collaborating with prominent international news agencies such as AFP and, from 2015 until now, with Reuters.