Dr. Azni Zarina Taha (PhD, Aston University) serves as the Executive Director of UMGiving at Universiti Malaya, where she combines her academic foundation in organization and strategy with her extensive consultancy experience. Prior to this post, she was the Executive Director for Universiti Malaya Center for Continuing Education (UMCCed) and Deputy Director for UMConsult. Holding a PhD in strategy and organizational change, an MBA from Universiti Malaya, and a BSc from the University of Missouri, Dr. Azni is well-regarded for her contributions to management education and strategic development. In her academic role, Dr. Azni teaches corporate strategy and most management-related subjects, integrating academic theory with insights from her consultancy projects. Some of the management-related subjects include, change management in disruptive times, sustainable service innovations, performance management, international business, and training management. She has successfully completed supervising four (4) PhD students. She has published in several refereed and index journals, including Operations Management Research and Tourism Management.  She has delivered tailored training programs for organizations such as Panasonic Malaysia, the Malaysia Armed Forces, and Infineon Technologies, empowering these teams with advanced strategic skills. She has also conducted international training programs for Aoyama Business School (Japan), Kyoto Institute of Technology (Japan), Aston University (UK), and the University of Technology and Applied Sciences (Oman).  As a consultant, Dr. Azni has advised high-profile organizations across sectors. Her consultancy work with the Ministry of Rural and Regional Development, the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Cost of Living (KPDN), and the Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation (MATRADE) highlights her commitment to supporting Malaysia’s economic and industrial advancements. Other notable projects include developing a strategic customer service roadmap for Kumpulan Wang Amanah Pekerja (KWAP), profiling mosques as tourism attractions for the Islamic Tourism Centre (ITC), and creating the Aerospace Industry 4.0 Readiness Index (AIR4S).

Abrizah Abdullah is currently an Honorary Professor in the Department of Library & Information Science, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, Universiti Malaya (UM). Her substantial academic and research experience is enhanced by her profound dedication to teaching, particularly to postgraduates. Notably, she has successfully supervised 22 PhD students in the field of Library and Information Science (LIS), contributing significantly to their academic or professional journeys. Abrizah graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Environmental Engineering from Temple University, Philadelphia. She continued her pursuit of knowledge at UM, where she earned both her Masters and PhD degrees in LIS. Her remarkable journey in UM began in 2000, after a decade of teaching experience and as a teacher librarian at the secondary school level. Before transitioning to her academic career at UM, she worked as a librarian at the Educational Planning and Research Division (EPRD) of the Ministry of Education. Her LIS research interests are notably diverse, encompassing digital libraries, information behavior, scholarly communication, bibliometrics and scientometrics. Prof. Abrizah's dedication to research is evident through her leadership of her own research group in Informetrics and Scholarly Publishing. Under the mentorship of Professor Zainab Awang Ngah, her earlier work with this research group played a pivotal role in the establishment of significant academic platforms and digital repositories. Notably, their collaborative efforts gave birth to the Malaysian journal hosting platform, MyJurnal, and the national citation indexing system, MyCite, in 2011. Her contributions in this domain earned her the position of Deputy Director of the Malaysian Citation Centre (MCC) and advisory panel membership at the MCC, within the Department of Higher Education. She is presently engaged in the planning of the National Knowledge Infrastructure for the Ministry and is a member of the Advisory Board of the National Library of Malaysia. In addition to her academic roles, Abrizah serves as a Senior Academic Associate at CIBER Research Ltd., UK. She is also currently a Principal Investigator in an international research project funded by the Alfred Sloan Foundation. This groundbreaking research (Harbingers project) examines the scholarly communication behaviors of Early Career Researchers across nine countries, including China, France, Malaysia, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, the UK, and the USA. Abrizah's editorial leadership shines through as the Chief Editor of the Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science, a publication indexed in both the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and Scopus. She actively participates in the scholarly community as an author, member of international advisory boards, and a reviewer for influential journals in LIS. With about 120 SSCI-indexed articles to her name, her expertise in scholarly publishing has made her a sought-after speaker at numerous talks and seminars. Her contributions have been instrumental in deepening the understanding of how scholarly publishing impacts research and education. As a strong supporter of Open Science, she is actively involved in important roles both in Malaysia and internationally. In Malaysia, she leads the Working Group on Capacity Building and Awareness for the Malaysian Open Science Platform (MOSP) within the Malaysian Open Science Alliance. On a global scale, she is in the Steering Committee for the International Science Council's project on Open Science and the Future of Scientific Publishing. She is also a member of the DOAB (Directory of Open Access Book) Scientific Committee and contributes her expertise to the ASEAN Citation Index (ACI) Steering Committee. Prof. Abrizah served as the Dean of the Institute for Advanced Studies UM, a position she had held since January 2022 until she officially retired from public services in September 2024. Her previous leadership experience includes serving as the Dean at the Faculty of Computer Science & Information Technology and the Dean of the Institute of Postgraduate Studies, where she and her team were responsible for the management of postgraduate education and the oversight of full research programs at the university. Abrizah's expertise and unwavering dedication to advancing scholarly communication in Malaysia have earned her recognition in academia. Her commitment to LIS education, leadership, and research has had a profound impact on the field, not only in Malaysia but also globally.

Jiankun Gong publishes on application of media effects theories in the digital context, emerging communication technologies, and computational social science.  He is  also focusing on health communication and how (social) media helps to communicate health and science.  Also, he has interests in migration and student mobility studies. His works have been published at Digital Journalism, Social Media + Society, Journalism among others. He serves as associate editor, peer reviewer at various journals, conferences (ICA, NCA etc.).