Prof Ian Refalo
President of the Board of Governors

Prof. Refalo is a professor of public law and served for several years as Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Malta. He occupies the position of Ad Personam Jean Monnet Professor at the University of Malta.

He is highly regarded as an authority in administrative and public law and has practised as a lawyer for over 40 years. He has experience in various fields, notably those of human rights, civil law, commercial and administrative law, and he is a leading lawyer in a number of high-profile cases.

Prof. Refalo worked as a lawyer at the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice.

Prof Mark G Borg
Member of the Board of Governors

Professor Mark Borg is Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Malta, which he joined as full-time lecturer in 1984. He has served as Head of the Department of Psychology (1996-2000), as deputy Dean of the Faculty of Education (1997-1999), and as Dean of the same faculty (1999-2003). An educator and academic psychologist by profession, he has been teaching and researching educational psychology for over 35 years. His papers in psychology and education are published in many prestigious specialised journals. He has also presented many papers at various international conferences as well as local ones. Professor Borg is an Associate Fellow of, and a Chartered Psychologist with, the British Psychological Society. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Chartered Scientist with the British Science Council. He has served on several national committees including the Ministerial Committee on Inclusive Education and on School Bullying, and on the National Curriculum Council. Professor Borg was appointed on the MCAST Board of Governors in 2013.

Mr Athony Scicluna
Member of the Board of Governors

Mr Anthony Scicluna was educated at St. Aloysuis College, the New Lyceum and the University of Malta. He joined Bank of Valletta in 1984 and mainly held positions within the bank’s branch network, finance and internal audit. Between 2005 and 2013, he was responsible for the Bank’s Group Internal Audit function. In 2013 he served as Chief Officer responsible for human resources, ethics, training and employee development. He also formed part of the Bank’s Executive Committee.

Anthony retired from Bank of Valletta in December 2021 and is now a freelance consultant and practitioner. During his career Anthony held positions on a number of boards, including management, risk and audit committees. He currently chairs the MCAST Audit Committee and is also Deputy Chairman at Heritage Malta.

Anthony is a certified public accountant and holds a practicing certificate in auditing. He is a fellow member of the Malta Institute of Accountants, where he is also a member of the Institute’s Disciplinary Committee. He also holds an honours degree in Business Management from the University of Malta.

Mr Brian Farrugia
Member of the Board of Governors

Mr Brian Farrugia commenced his career in banking, working for two major Maltese banks, Bank of Valletta and APS Bank where he specialised in Corporate Lending. He later joined Erste Bank Malta, a subsidiary of the Erste Bank Group of Austria, where he was responsible for trading services and back office operations of Erste Bank and its subsidiaries. In 2005 he established his own firm, InterLink Corporate. Following a joint venture with another service provider, which took place in 2009, the company was restructured and later in 2013 Quantum Group was established. Brian’s professional experience led him to provide training services for a period of time in banking and corporate finance at the Malta International Training Centre both in Malta and overseas.

Ms Rhoda Garland
Member of the Board of Governors

Ms Rhoda Garland is a governor at MCAST and executive director at the Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disability. She has a B.A. (Hons) degree in Accountancy and Finance, which she gained from Nottingham Trent University, and is a qualified accountant. She has a Master’s degree in Disability Studies and is currently working towards a PhD entitled ‘Disability, activism and engagement in politics’. Rhoda began her career in the UK working for blue-chip companies in finance, IT and project management roles. When she moved to Malta she worked in IT, before transferring to the disability sector, where she researched and wrote the first Maltese State Report for the United Nations Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disability and then moved to a project management role in CRPD where she was appointed as executive director in 2015. Rhoda has a special interest in the education and employment of disabled people, and in her free time enjoys wheelchair basketball and rugby and also scuba diving.

Ms Louisa Grech
Member of the Board of Governors

Ms Luisa Grech has been a member of the MCAST Board of Governors since 2013, and she also holds the position of Board Secretary of the Board of Governors. Her academic achievements include a B.A. History & Philosophy awarded in 1977, and a P.G.C.E. awarded in 2006. Ms Grech is a teacher by profession and has worked in Church, Independent, and International Schools in Malta for over ten years.  She has also worked in the disability sector for the last 26 years, out of which five and a half years were spent as executive manager of a disability NGO.  Ms Grech also gave occasional lectures at the University of Malta on this topic and participated in various conferences and EU projects in Malta and abroad. Her interests include: classical music, photography, reading, cooking, dance and travelling. She is also a member of the core team of Drachma Parents.

Mrs Marietta Lanzon
Member of the Board of Governors

Mrs Marietta Lanzon has been a member of the Board of Governors of Malta College for Arts, Science and Technology (MCAST) since October 2017. She retired as Senior Probation Officer in 2017 after 18 years in public service. She dedicated her entire career to helping offenders rehabilitate themselves and decrease their offending. Mrs Lanzon pursued tertiary studies at the University of Malta as a mature student after raising a family. She holds a Diploma in Gender Studies (Women and Development) and a Diploma in Probation Services. More recently in 2012, she obtained a Master in Probation Services with a thesis on Community Service in Malta: The Role of the Judiciary. Following her initial appointment as a Probation Officer in 1999, she was promoted to Senior Probation Officer in 2012, where she was tasked with assisting in the setting up of the Parole Unit in 2013, and consequently with the supervision of its team until her retirement. As part of her work at the Law Courts, she prepared and presented several pre-sentencing and social reports to the judiciary. Prior to joining public service, Mrs Lanzon worked as a care worker at the Programm Fejda, a residential therapeutic programme for adolescent girls with emotional and behavioural difficulties. Among her other activities, she is now involved in an EU project, namely ESP regarding the Transition of Inmates to the Labour Market, a venture between the Corradino Correctional Facility and the University of Malta. Mrs Lanzon is a photography enthusiast, with MQF Level 1 technical competences. She is married with two children.

Ms Marisa Xuereb
Member of the Board of Governors

Marisa Xuereb is an economist who has worked in the industry for over 20 years. She is the current Deputy President of the Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry, and serves as Director on Malta Enterprise, Malta Life Sciences Park, the Malta Council for Science and Technology, and Education Malta. She joined a foreign-owned manufacturing start-up while still a student and was entrusted with its overall management very early on in her career, developing the company into an established supplier of quartz glass components for various industries in several countries. She is also a parent of two children of school-age.

Mr Kurt Farrugia
Member of the Board of Governors

Kurt Farrugia was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Malta Enterprise on 1st August 2019. Previously, he served as Head of Government Communication and spokesperson for the Prime Minister between 2013 and 2019. In August 2017, the Prime Minister appointed Mr Farrugia on the Malta-UK Business Promotion Task Force where he actively contributed on matters related to investment promotion in the UK. In April 2019 he was appointed on the New Economic Niches Committee of Malta Enterprise.

Mr Farrugia formed part of the Task Force organising the Valletta Summit on Migration and the Commonwealth Head of Governments Meeting held in 2015, as well as the Informal European Council during Malta’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union in February 2017. He accompanied the Prime Minister in most of his international engagements at EU level. Mr Farrugia’s career before his role at the Office of the Prime Minister was in journalism and politics. He graduated in Communications and is currently reading for a Masters Degree in Entrepreneurship at the University of Malta.