Prof. Buttigieg has more than twenty five years of professional experience in financial regulation and supervision. He is the Chief Officer – Supervision, 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.  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 of 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 a member of the EBA Task force on proportionality (2025). He is currently the Chair of the ESMA Proportionality and Coordination Committee and a member of the ESMA Management Board.
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, Finance and Investments 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, and a visiting lecturer at the same institution.

He is an active researcher and has published various papers in reputable journals, including the Columbia Journal of European Law, the European Company and Financial Law Review, the ERA Forum, the Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance, the Journal of Business Law and the Law and Financial Markets Review. His latest publications deals with centralisation of supervision of CASPs under the EU Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation.

He is also the Editor in Chief of the Journal of the Financial Supervisors Academy, which seeks to bridge academia with financial supervision.