Elma Berisha is currently General Manager for Strategy, Policy Development & Research for the Kuala Lumpur-based Asian Institute of Finance (AIF), a Bank Negara think tank established to enhance human capital development and talent management. Elma is involved with a range of industry research and case studies. She is trained in Case Study Method of Writing in both best practices of the Harvard University and Ivey Business School. In her tenure Elma has delivered public workshops and corporate trainings on a range of topics as employee engagement, customer satisfaction, market segmentation, sampling strategies, etc. Some of Elma’s co-authored publications include Gen Y: Aspirations for the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) (2016), Digital Banking: Measuring the Consumer Pulse in Malaysia (2016), Redefining the Role of HR (2016), Enhancing Digital Trust in Banking and Insurance: A Regional Perspective (2017), Gen Y in the Workplace: An Asean Perspective (2018).
From 2009-2015 Elma worked as Regional Manager for Consumer Research and Public Perceptions in Asia Pacific, with Frost & Sullivan, a global consulting company specialised in growth strategy. She has been intensively focused in evaluation of public perceptions in Malaysia and Singapore, primarily monitoring issues of public safety, corruption and urban development. Her insightful inputs have contributed to PEMANDU teams’ monitoring of GTP – Government Transformation Program, in highlighting areas of improvement from the perspective of public perceptions. In the past decade, Elma has worked with a wide spectrum of public institutions in Malaysia, including top universities, international organisations and professional bodies.
Elma is a social researcher, psychologist by training, data scientist by profession, with a recent research interest on cognitive semiotics. She has recently published a few peer-reviewed articles on contribution of early Muslim scholars to semiotics. She has contributed book chapters to Women at Work: Perspective on Workplace and Family (2007) and Leaders in Development (2017). Elma has written a several articles on current issues facing global community and is actively involved in public forums in Malaysia. She is Senior Fellow at Islamic Renaissance Front (IRF), a Kuala Lumpur-based think tank working on youth empowerment, inter-cultural dialogue and promotion of moderate Muslim intellectual discourse.
Elma travels extensively and is a contributor to Critical Muslim.