Norliza Hashim is the Chief Executive of Urbanice Malaysia, a Centre of Excellence for Community Well-being and Urban Sustainability, under the Ministry of Housing and Local Government Malaysia; where she leads a team that focus on the implementation and localisation of sustainable urbanisation policies in cities and regions through shared knowledge platforms, innovative urban solutions and collaborative partnership.

Norliza lead the team of Local Secretariat for the Ninth Session of the World Urban Forum hosted by Malaysia in 2018 and since then continue to work alongside UN-Habitat, UNESCAP and various global and local organisations to implement the New Urban Agenda and localised the Sustainable Development Goals. She is instrumental in the formulation of the national program of Malaysia SDG Cities, a framework for cities in Malaysia to prepare a roadmap, to accelerate local implementation and to ensure that the agenda of Cities for All is aligned to local blueprints and action plans. Today more than 15 cities has completed and also in progress of undertaking their local action plan towards the 2030 Agenda.

Norliza is a professional registered Town Planner and her experiences covers a wide spectrum of the planning discipline and has developed plans and blueprints that has contributed towards Malaysia’s nation building including the National Physical Plan 3, Putrajaya Master Plan, Iskandar Malaysia Comprehensive Development Plan, the Kuala Lumpur City Plan and has been instrumental in formulating Conservation Management plans for World Heritage Cities of Penang and Melaka for UNESCO. She has also exported her services providing services to more than 12 nations globally – including Indonesia, China, Pakistan, India, Uganda and Saudi Arabia; where she has developed various types of township masterplans that embeds the values and principles of sustainability and liveability.

She also led a team of experts to develop the Low Carbon Cities Assessment Framework for the Ministry of Environment and Water and is the Director for Malaysian Institute of Planners Low Carbon Cities and Sustainability Centre. She was President of Malaysia Institute of Planners and was also the Secretary General of the Eastern Regional Organisation for Planning and Housing, an accredited organisation of the UN-Habitat.

Norliza currently also sits on the Leadership Council for Sustainable Development Solutions Network Malaysia (SDSN), a Fellow of Institute MASA and several organisation related to sustainability as her passion lies in promoting the sustainability agenda and in providing innovative solutions that contributes towards better quality of life and built environment for cities and nations.

She is also a registered technologist and sits on the Accreditation and Qualification of the Malaysian Board of Technologist, a professional body for technologist and technicians; and here she promotes the development of innovation and smart solutions to help cities and regions to be sustainable and resilient.

She has been recognised for her contribution in urban planning and sustainability and has been appointed as Adjunct Professor to the International Islamic University Malaysia this year (2022), conferred Planner of the Year in 2018 by the Malaysian Institute of Planner and awarded as the Top 10 National Women Entrepreneur Award, Malaysia in 2014 by the Malaysian External Trade Development Corporation.

Regionally, she is now the Chairman of the Penang Platform for Sustainable Urbanisation, a dynamic new partnership to leverage the strengths of cities and leading urban development organisations to support local, regional and national governments in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and New Urban Agenda in Asia and the Pacific. 14 founding members of the Penang Platform are 100 Resilient Cities, Penang Island City Council, CityNet, Asian Coalition for Housing Rights, Commonwealth Local Government Forum, European Union International Urban Cooperation Programme (IUC), Huairou Commission, ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies Japan (IGES), The Rockefeller Foundation, United Nations Development Programme, UN-Habitat, ESCAP and Urbanice Malaysia.