The new Vassallo Group chairperson gets the “shivers” when she reads that her father, Żaren Vassallo, is still referred to as a ‘construction magnate’, even when development is a slimmer slice of the business today.

Natalie Briffa Farrugia may be his hand-picked successor, but she does not fit that description.

And while the construction arm is an essential part of the group’s history and she embraces where she is coming from, its expansion into the care industry, which she pioneered and headed, has shifted the focus.

Once the motto was: a private company with a public conscience. Now, Briffa Farrugia says the public conscience is outstripping the private side to become the group’s business model.

The image of the construction mogul does not sit well with the woman who rejected the thriving family business at a young age and ventured out of her home town, Mosta, into the world of voluntary work. She found her niche in the caring profession, building a successful care home business and finding fulfillment in end-of-life and long-term care.

The chosen one – the eldest daughter of five driven, dedicated siblings, all with key roles within the group, Briffa Farrugia underscores – has come full circle from those rebel days, describing it as an evolution.

It has been a “holistic internal journey” too – from the days when the family’s fortune propelled the woman who was seeking the simpler things in life into an elite world she did not feel comfortable with.

“We may be associated with the richer side of society, but we were brought up in a very hard-working family of simple people, so my association with the elite was never there. I used to be in these circles and yet feel the need to be out of them.”

She will now move from CareMalta CEO to heading a group that is one of the largest private employers in Malta. It has some 2,000 staff, mostly in the care home sector, and is involved in many sectors, including hospitality and catering, furniture and interiors, architecture and education, property and, yes, construction.

The emphasis on good governance has meant the company created a “healthy balance” between family and non-family members of staff, and today, some of its employees are being awarded for years – even up to 40 – of service, loyalty and career progression.

Just as much as it can be all doom and gloom, it is also the right time to act and for change to happen

But beyond the utopian “extended family” idea, Briffa Farrugia knows she is also heading a company that carries the negative ‘construction tycoon’ connotations.

Passing the baton

In its 76th year of operation, her father has now “astonishingly fully resigned”, determined to ensure the transition occurs while he is around to witness and support it, says his daughter, conscious that things can go wrong from generation to generation.

“He has been talking to us about this since we were very young, and it has been ingrained in us by both my parents, so we all feel a huge responsibility for that not to happen.”

Before stepping down, Vassallo had stern words about the uglification of Malta in a Times of Malta interview last year, saying the problem would multiply and that it was too late to solve it.

Then he passed the baton on to his firstborn, who refutes her father’s assertion.

“I cannot start this journey saying this,” she insists.

Vassallo blamed developers and the Planning Authority – in a sense both clearing his name and assuming some responsibility – but the diplomatic daughter will not be drawn into commenting on the subject.

“Everyone has to shoulder their part of the responsibility,” she says.

She strikes a positive note on the environment, despite acknowledging little sign of hope and change.

“If the voice was crying, now it is shouting,” she says.

Even as she points to a looming recession, Briffa Farrugia believes that, in the current crisis, “just as much as it can be all doom and gloom, it is also the right time to act and for change to happen”.

Knowing she has taken on the role at a time when tried-and-tested business formulas need to be challenged, the chairperson says past “win-lose” models may have succeeded – but not anymore.

“Now, it must be a win-win situation for both parties all the time. The cowboy attitude of the strong trampling the weak may still exist but it will come back to you.”

Neither is it the time for quick-fix models, she stresses.

'Cost of private long-term care cannot go up'

Hit by rising costs on every business front, Briffa Farrugia’s ethos means she cannot ignore the impact on consumers, often made to absorb the increases.

She questions the sustainability of this model in the long term and what it would lead to, taking these questions to the boardroom when the issue of passing on higher costs is raised.

“For the next three years, following on from the past 12, the cost of private long-term care cannot go up, no matter the situation, because it is already too expensive,” she says.

“Finding our way around this was not easy, but I have a track record of success here, and if you challenge me, I can come back to you with my results,” adds the chair of the Malta Chamber’s Care Home Operators Section.

But recently, from watching what was happening in the world, I am more conscious of what a woman can bring to the table

“You just have to go back to the drawing board and rethink the scenario.”

Campus Hub, Malta’s first student village, is the group’s “latest, greatest” investment, but it is also actively exploring a public-private partnership in the alternative care niche for children with long-term care needs, or under care orders, where families cannot cope.

“We always enter at the end of the line, where it is the most challenging,” Briffa Farrugia says, adding there will always be highly challenging children, creating situations where families need backup.

‘I have never looked out for women’

Even though she will face patriarchal challenges in her role, Briffa Farrugia does not consider herself a feminist.

“In my previous roles, I have never looked out for women,” she admits. “The drive was always the higher purpose and I looked for competence – not males or females.

“But recently, from watching what was happening in the world, I am more conscious of what a woman can bring to the table.

“The world is calling out for true leadership in different forms,” she believes.

“I see that I can bring to the table something that is not there,” Briffa Farrugia maintains, referring to “the maximisation of the human element and bringing it all together”.

Female characteristics of empathy and perseverance, resilience and, most importantly, listening can be transferred to the boardroom, she believes.

“Probably, even though I have been rebellious, my father saw the capabilities of a woman before I saw them myself.

“He told me he had been studying me in the role all my life.”