ROLE PLAYERS 2017 - Elmarie Potgieter


Elmarie Potgieter

Chief Executive Officer
MCII – Malaysian Collective Impact Initiative

Elmarie Potgieter is CEO of the Malaysian Collective Impact Initiative which aims at improving education outcomes for students through innovative collaboration between various stakeholders. Elmarie has extensive international experience in education transformation, management, training and leadership. Prior to her role with MCII, she led the team responsible for the design and implementation of national public education transformation programmes such as the Yayasan AMIR Trust Schools Programme, Project PreSTasi and Project GUSTO – highly successful initiatives that have shown measurable and sustainable impact on school leadership, teacher practice and student outcomes in hundreds of public schools across Malaysia.

Elmarie's approach to transformation is grounded in a deep understanding of the learning needs of adults and children and the belief that change should be embedded through a comprehensive bottom up and top down strategy that involves the commitment of multiple stakeholders. Elmarie is the ideator of ThinkWise, a programme aimed at embedding thinking skills in the Early Years.

She is regularly invited to present on topics such as school transformation, promoting a thinking culture, emotional intelligence, brain-based learning, engagement and social networking. She is an accredited Emotional Intelligence Coach and welcomes collaborative initiatives and dialogues about new trends in professional development.