Ms Valerie Attard joined MCAST as Director of Human Resources on the 4^th January 2024. Ms Attard’s career covers the areas of Finance, Human Resources and

Communications. Ms Attard previously occupied the position of Corporate Senior Manager within the Malta Further and Higher Education Authority since 2013. In this role she headed the Administrative, Financial and Human Resources Unit within the Authority. Her responsibilities in the field of

Human Resources included HR Strategy, Planning and Forecasts, HR Policy, employee performance management, payroll, recruitment and labour relations. She was also responsible for drawing up the annual Business and Financial Plans of the Authority.

As part of this role, she also actively contributed to various updates of the Malta Referencing Report and she was also on the Working Group for Malta’s Strategic Action Plan for Further and Higher Education 2022-2030. Previous to this post, Ms Attard held the Post of Communications Manager within the same Authority from 2007 till 2013. In this role Ms Attard was primarily responsible for the Authority’s websites, media events, public relations and publications. She was also responsible for drawing up a number of EU project proposals and applications.

Ms Attard’s professional experience is strengthened by her qualifications. Following the completion of her Bachelor’s Honours Degree, Ms Attard pursed her studies and obtained a Diploma in Management and an Executive Masters in Business Administration, all studies were completed at the University of Malta. Over the past ten years these studies were further developed by her attendance to numerous short courses in the field of Human Resources which included Employment Law, GDPR and Industrial Relations.

During the course of her career, Ms Attard has worked on various EU and national projects related to the field of education. She also occupied the role of Project Leader on a number of EU projects.

Ms Attard was also nominated on a number of Boards at both National and International levels including the Malta ReferNet Representative, Cedefop (European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training) Communications Working Group and various Bologna Follow-Up Groups (BFUG) including the BFUG Working Groups on Global Policy Dimension and Social Dimension. She has also contributed her expertise as a speaker to various national conferences on Human Resources.

Ms Cohen joined MCAST on 12th September 2022 as Deputy Director (Human Resources). Before joining MCAST, Ms Cohen spent over a decade working within various departments across the Maltese public service. For six and a half years, she worked within the People and Standards Division, first in the role of Manager II (Human Resources) and later she was promoted to Senior Manager (Compliance). During such period, Ms Cohen was in charge of centralised procedures, such as, redeployments, secondments and extensions of service beyond retirement age of public sector employees. Besides, she was also involved in decentralized resourcing procedures related to Directives 7.3 and 12.

During such period, Ms Cohen was also in charge of spearheading the first compliance checks related to internal and external resourcing processes within the public sector entities. Additionally, prior to joining the People and Standards Division, Ms Cohen worked within the Department for Information, in the function of Principal and as Office Support Manager. During this period, she conducted various duties related to the general administration of the department, including recruitment, procurement, and up keeping of the department’s entire registry. Also, she performed other duties related to the department’s operations, namely, issuing of government’s press releases to the general media and participating during local and international media events, such as budget day, state visits like EU Africa Summit, CHOGM and elections.

Earlier in her career, Ms Cohen spent a number of years working in the educational sector within the
private sector and within the public service. During this period, she occupied various roles
mainly related to teaching and learning.

Ms Cohen’s career is complimented by years of academic studies, whereby she attained several qualifications from local and foreign educational institutions. One of her latest academic accomplishments includes her attainment of the Masters of Science in Leadership and Organisational Behaviour awarded by the Dublin City University