Marie-Therese McGivern

Marie-Thérèse McGivern began her career as a teacher in further education. In the 90s, she moved to develop policy for the youth service in Northern Ireland and in 1995 joined the Civil Service as a secondee to the Urban Regeneration Initiative, Making Belfast Work. In 1999 she joined the Belfast City Council as Director of Development.

In November 2009 Marie-Thérèse returned to further education and became Principal and Chief Executive of Belfast Metropolitan College, the biggest further education college in Northern Ireland. The College has a staff of 1,000 with 16,000 students. There she led a complete transformation of the College and has led a significant programme of improvement. She retired from the College at the end of March 2020.

Marie-Thérèse has recently been appointed the Chair of Titanic Foundation Ltd and is the Chair for the Employability and Skills Advisory Board for the £10b Belfast Region City Deal. She is also a Non-Executive Director of the Strategic Investment Board for Northern Ireland (remunerated £11,110 per annum) and Northern Ireland Water (remuneration £18,000 per annum), she is also a Fellow of the City and Guilds of London Institute. She has a passion for transformation especially in the power of education and skills development to change lives and communities.