Having served in various capacities in the Malaysian Civil Service, Datin Paduka Nurmala Abd. Rahim, who holds a masters degree in Public Administration from Pennsylvania State University, U.S.A, an honours degree in Social Science from University of Science Malaysia and a Diploma in Public Administration, has vast and in-depth experience in public administration including inter alia, policy formulations and execution. At international levels, she is the Head of National Tripartite Rubber Cooperation Between Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. She is also actively involved in various capacities in a number of commodity economic and technical missions, as well as unilateral, bilateral, regional and multilateral negotiations and forums for the commodity sector, in which she is the Head of Delegation for Malaysia. Currently she is also the Governor for Malaysia under the Common Fund For Commodities (CFC), which was established within the framework of the United Nations.
Besides her responsibilities as the Secretary General of MPIC, she is also the Chairman of the National Kenaf and Tobacco Board, Malaysia (LKTN) and a board member of the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC), the Malaysian Timber Council (MTC), the Malaysian Timber Industry Board (MTIB), the Rubber Industry Smallholders Development Authority (RISDA) and the Malaysian Rubber Development Corporation (MARDEC).
IPC would like to congratulate Datin Paduka Nurmala Abd. Rahim on her appointment as IPC Chairman and is confident that under her leadership and guidance, IPC would move and achieve greater heights in contributing towards the overall development of the global pepper industry. 
