Erila Haska

Erila Haska is a global innovation management leader, ecosystem architect, and strategic partnerships expert who has spent her career connecting people, ideas, and organizations to turn innovation into real-world impact. As Chief Operating Officer and Director of Strategic Partnerships at the Global Innovation Management Institute (GIMI) and a Senior Consultant at the IXL Center in Boston, she manages a network of Certified Training Partners across six continents and a global community of thousands of innovators. She led GIMI’s merger with the IAOIP—adding roughly 5,000 members, an international journal, and a career platform—built new revenue streams from the ground up, and nearly tripled revenues in two years, part of a consistent track record of tripling revenues in every role she has held.

Her consulting work spans some of the world’s largest organizations and governments, including OCP Group in Morocco, Petronas in Malaysia, Renault in India, the Ayala Group in Southeast Asia, Sunlife Canada, Klabin in Brazil, and Royal Caribbean, alongside the Service Innovation Tool she led for the Government of Qatar and a $2M leadership program for 2,000 business leaders in Brazil. Across these engagements she has built innovation pipelines, strategies, frameworks, and internal academies, trained corporate teams such as Airbus on applying innovation methodologies, and designed flagship programs including the Global Innovation Awards, GIMI Impact, Innovation Coach, and Innovation Catalyst. She holds an MBA with executive education at Stanford and MIT Sloan, and is a certified Innovation Manager, Management Consultant, and Non-Profit Manager.

Beyond her corporate work, Erila is a committed advocate for women in innovation and for social entrepreneurship. She founded Voice of Women in Innovation, a global community advancing the inclusion of women in innovation and decision-making, and is a founding member of The Women in STEM Network. Earlier in her career she pioneered social entrepreneurship research in the Western Balkans, organized Albania’s first live crowdfunding event, authored reports for the European Commission and Council of Europe, and led capability-building and grant programs for hundreds of NGOs, startups, and social enterprises. She has taught over 1,000 students in strategic management and mentored hundreds of professionals, startups, and young people worldwide, and speaks internationally on innovation strategy, ecosystems, and gender equity.