Prof. Buttigieg has twenty-three years of experience in financial regulation and supervision.

He is the Chief Officer responsible for the Supervision Directorate, the Chair of the MFSA’s Regulatory Committee and the AMLCFT Committee and a member of the Authority’s Executive Committee and Risk Committee.  He is responsible for the co-ordination and implementation of the supervisory and regulatory strategy across all the sectors under the MFSA’s remit. Between October 2020 and September 2021, Prof. Buttigieg fulfilled the role Interim Chief Executive Officer of the Malta Financial Services Authority.

Throughout his career at the MFSA, Prof. Buttigieg was responsible for managing various functions and teams. He was also responsible for the implementation of several European Directives and Regulations and the development of new regulatory frameworks at national level.

Prof. Buttigieg is a member of the Board of Supervisors of the European Securities and Markets Authority and European Banking Authority.  He was the Chair of the ESMA Data Standing Committee (until December 2022) and is now the Chair of the ESMA Proportionality and Coordination Committee (PCC).

Prof. Buttigieg has a commerce degree (B.Com 1998), an accountancy degree (B.Accty. Hons. 2000) and a financial services law degree (M.A. Fin. Ser. 2003) from the University of Malta, as well as a European Union Law degree (M.A. EU Law and Soc 2005) and a doctoral degree in law (PhD 2014) from the University of Sussex (UK). His Doctoral thesis deals with the governance of EU securities regulation and supervision. Prof. Buttigieg is an Associate Professor in the Banking and Finance Department of the University of Malta. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Academy of European Law (ERA) in Trier, Germany, a visiting lecturer at the same institution and the Strategic Director of the MFSA’s Financial Supervisors Academy.

He is an active researcher and has published various papers in reputable journals, including the Columbia Journal of European Law, the ERA Forum, the Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance, the Journal of Business Law and the Law and Financial Markets Review. One of his latest publication deals with the institutional architecture for financial supervision of a small jurisdiction and proposes reforms with a view of achieving more efficient and cost-effective financial supervision.