Biography

There’s no doubting ‘Żaren’ Vassallo’s Mosta origins. The son of Pio and Carmela née Camilleri, the eight of twelve siblings was born in a house on the village’s main thoroughfare and, like his father and grandfather, was baptized in that historic church which is one of Malta’s prides. He grew and became popular always in the shadow of his beloved village.

From 1946 to 1965 his father was in partnership in the building industry with others, but he then went on his own. Few years later he was joined by his son Nazzareno, then just 16, at a time of a veritable building boom in the country.

In 1971 Vassallo became managing director of Vassallo Builders Ltd., which as a group today employ nearly 2,000 people and engaged on several big contracts that included the Danish Holiday Village at Mellieħa Bay.

Vassallo was the youngest of five brothers in a family of 12. In 1985 he bought out his father and brothers shares, and the Vassallo Builders Group now moved on to become one of the island’s leading building and civil engineering groups.

Vassallo sought to spread as much as possible the group’s interests. He entered the tourism industry in a big way, ran a furniture-making company, became involved in various residential homes care for the elderly, kept up his group’s normal contracting activity and, above all, proved himself as a very effective chairman of the consortium of companies which was awarded the Lm50 million contract of the building of Malta’s international air terminal at Luqa, i.e. the N.O.V.I.T.A. Construction Company Ltd.

Under Vassallo’s leadership Vassallo Builders Group continued to diversify and have an interest in construction, care, property, energy and education.

With the advent of local government in Malta, Vassallo polled the highest number of votes cast in the local council elections, and in 1994 he was the first mayor of Mosta Council till 1998.

In April 2021, Nazzareno Vassallo was named EY’s – Entrepreneur of the Year.