Alastair Macphail is head of the Communication Department of the European Training Foundation (ETF), the European Union agency helping countries develop through learning.

A language graduate, Alastair joined the EU family in 1991 as a linguist in the Commission’s Translation Service. He has had a varied career in the EU, including implementing language technology at the Translation Centre, developing minority language policy, managing vocational training programmes and developing vocational education and training policy at the Commission’s DG for Education and Culture, and helping set up the European Chemicals Agency in Helsinki before joining the ETF in Turin as Head of Administration in 2009.