IAMAI Looks To Reserve Chairman & 50% Governing Council Seats For Indian Firms

The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) has proposed resolutions specifying that the association’s Chairman should be a prominent executive — be it a founder, cofounder, Chairman, CEO, Managing Director, or Executive Director — of an Indian-based company.

This follows earlier controversies suggesting that the association was biased towards major tech corporations like Google, Meta, Amazon, and Netflix. Later, Dream11 founder and CEO Harsh Jain was elected as the new chairperson. 

The newly elected governing council included cofounder and group CEO of MakeMyTrip Rajesh Magow, among others.

An Indian company, as defined by the IAMAI, is a firm with a permanent establishment in India and a parent company that generates the majority of its revenue within the country.

The association had previously announced that 83 members of the association would be contesting the election to the 24-member IAMAI governing council. The nominees of the top three firms, in terms of votes received in this election, would become the Chairperson, vice Chairperson and treasurer of the association, and form its executive council (EC).

In its updated resolution, IAMAI clarified that the association will continue to represent any legally operating company in India. Additionally, it mentioned that 50% of seats in the governing council will be reserved for Indian companies, and the remainder will be open to all eligible members.

“All members of the governing council to be founders, cofounders, Chairman, country heads, CEOs, executive directors, and COOs of their companies,” as per the resolution. 

The industry body has also notified process changes to ensure transparency and internal synergy in the election process. IAMAI said that the election of committee chair or co-chairs would be based on self-nominations, all members of the committee and council shall vote for office bearers of each committee.

In councils that have a separate “governing council” such as PCI, FCC, IEC, and Digital Advertising Council, members of the council’s governing council will vote for the office bearers. Besides, all office bearers would have a two-year term. 

The proposal for the formation of any new council or committees must be approved by the EC and the governing council by way of voting. New council or committees shall only be formed after receiving a majority of votes from the EC and the governing council.

The secretariat will go by at least a 65:35 majority of written submissions. If it is below that, for instance, 60:40, the issue will be raised to the governing council by the secretariat for resolution. 

Meanwhile, individual companies can ask the secretariat in writing to name them as dissenting, on any submission as currently practised, as per the resolution.

“In all committees and in all new councils, a representative of the governing council, who is a domain expert, will serve as a co-chair of the committee. This requirement shall not apply If there is no domain expert in the governing council for any committee. This should not violate the “cooling off” period of the office bearers. The presence of a GC (governing council) member as co-chair will not change the decision-making/voting process. [Not applicable to Councils which don’t use the IAMAI banner],” IAMAI said.

Tension had erupted between IAMAI and the Indian startup ecosystem earlier this year following the former’s view to the Committee on Digital Competition Law (CDCL) opposing any new anti-competitive law that wanted to curb the alleged dominance of the foreign players.