Dr Alma Harris is internationally known for her research and writing on educational leadership and school improvement. nbsp;She started her career as a secondary school teacher in South Wales before moving into business development and starting her own company.nbsp; After completing her PhD at the University of Bath, she held senior academic posts at the Open University, University of Nottingham and University of Warwick.nbsp; As Professor of Educational Leadership at Warwick she also held the post of Director of the 'Institute of Education' for four years. In 2009, she was appointed Pro-Director and Professor of Educational Leadership at the Institute of Education, University of London.… During her career, Alma has worked with various governments and agencies around the world supporting their school and system improvement work. In 2010- 12, she was seconded to the 'Welsh Government' as a Senior Policy Adviser to assist with the process of system wide reform which involved co-leading the National Professional Learning Communities programme and developing a Masters qualification for all newly qualified teachers. Her on-going development work for the World Bank focuses on supporting schools in challenging contexts in Russia, working with a team from the ' [1] Moscow Higher School of Economics'. She is also currently co-leading the 'Disciplined Collaboration and Evaluation of Professional Learning' programme for the 'Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership' (AITSL). Alma is President of the 'International Congress of School Effectiveness and School Improvement [2] ' which is an organisation dedicated to quality and equity in education. At present, she is Director of the Institute of Educational Leadership [3] , University of Malaya and is leading a major two-year research study focusing on leadership policy and leadership practice in Asia.[1] National Research University, Higher School of Economics, Institute for Educational studies[2] http://www.icsei.net/[3] http://ikp.um.edu.my/