Izlin is currently the Deputy Dean Research at the Faculty of Business and Economics, Universiti Malaya. She was formerly the Head of Department of Finance and Banking, as well as the Director for the Centre of Business Excellence (CBE@UM) at the faculty. She has also served as the Deputy Director at the International Institute of Public Policy and Management (INPUMA). Prior to academia, she was a corporate analyst at a multinational corporation. Izlin graduated with a BSc in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science, MSc in Investment Management from Bayes Business School, City, University of London, and PhD at Nottingham University Business School. She has published in indexed journals in areas such as international finance, microfinance, financial literacy, fintech and energy finance. She has also published several books including a financial literacy handbook for primary school students, a research-based book on consumer financial vulnerabilities, and recently a book on Fintech in Malaysia. Izlin has been appointed as consultant for several projects such as on financial literacy for primary schools and on economic enhancement programmes for public infrastructure projects. She has also led 8 out of 18 research projects with a total grant value of more than RM1 million. Her current research projects include financial literacy workshops for vulnerable groups including pensioners, migrant workers as well as students. She is also a corporate trainer for finance-related courses in corporate certification programmes. As for supervision, she has supervised more than 10 PhD and 50 Master students to completion.  

Azian bin Madun is a senior lecturer at the University of Malaya. He received his Phd in Finance from the University of Bath, United Kingdom in 2009. He has vast experience in the financial industry after serving the Malaysian stock exchange for ten years in the areas of finance and management research from 1993 to 2003. Since 2009 he has been teaching as well as undertaking research in the areas of finance and management as well as Islamic finance.

  Dr. Vilashini Somiah is a feminist anthropologist and Senior Lecturer at the Gender Studies Programme at Universiti Malaya. She earned her Ph.D. from the National University of Singapore, an MA from Ohio University, an MRes from Universiti Malaya, and a BA from Universiti Malaya. Her research focuses on underrepresented narratives of women, migrants, and Borneans living in the interiors. She co-edited Revisiting Covid-19 in Malaysia: Plight and Perseverance (UM Press, 2023) and Sabah from the Ground: The 2020 Elections and the Politics of Survival (SIRD/ISEAS, 2021). Her first single-authored book, Irregular Migrants and the Sea at the Borders of Sabah, Malaysia: Pelagic Alliance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), won the Universiti Malaya Award for Outstanding Achievement (ACUM) for Best Social Science Book of 2022 and has received international acclaim and reviews. Dr Somiah is currently working on her fourth book which explores the lives and resilience of Bornean women.  In 2024, Dr. Somiah was a Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics, supported by the Henry Luce Foundation and SEANNET. In 2025, she was appointed a Harvard Asia Centre Associate (2025-2026) https://asiacenter.harvard.edu/vilashini-somiah . That same year, she was elected to the Southeast Asia Council at the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) in the United States, a position she will hold until 2028  https://www.asianstudies.org/about/governance/councils/southeast-asia-council-seac/.  Beyond academia, she writes ethnographic articles on Malaysia’s socio-political landscape. To learn more about her work, visit www.vilashinisomiah.com.