‘Big Tech’ Out From IAMAI, Indian Entrepreneurs Take Charge With New Governing Council

The new 24-member governing council of industry body Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) will not have any representation of Big Tech companies with Dream11’s Harsh Jain set to become its chairperson. Reportedly, this is seen as an attempt by Indian entrepreneurs to seek control of policy making in the fast-evolving and growing technology and start-up sector.

According to a report by Moneycontrol, apart from Jain, Rajesh Magow of MakeMyTrip will become the vice chairperson and Satyan Gajwani of Times Internet will be the Treasurer, forming the 4-member executive council of the industry body. Shubho Ray serves as president ex-officio on the executive council.

These appointments pertain to the election that the industry body announced for its governing council on May 15. IAMAI had said that 83 of its members were contesting the election for the 24-member IAMAI Governing Council.

The top three companies, in terms of votes received, forms the executive council.

The other members of the new governing council include Ajay Kaushal of Billdesk; Alok Mittal, Indifi; Aloke Bajpai, Ixigo; Anant Goenka, Indian Express; Anupam Mittal, People Interactive; Ashish Kashyap, IndMoney; Chintan Thakkar Info Edge; Dinesh Agarwal, IndiaMart; Harshil Mathur, Razorpay; Murugavel, Matrimony.com; Jitendra Gupta, Jupiter; Miten Sampat, Cred; Naveen Kukreja, Paisa Bazaar; Neeraj Roy, Hungama; Nitish Mittersain, Nazara; Rajendra Nalam, Paytm; Ritesh Malik, Innov8; Rohan Verma, MapmyIndia; Sameer Nigam, PhonePe; Upasana Taku, Mobikwik; Vishwas Patel, Infibeam Avenues.

These results will seemingly assuage the sentiments of Indian entrepreneurs who were batting for representation of homegrown companies in the industry body’s leadership, the report said.

Sources told Moneycontrol that it was a conscious decision to keep out Big Tech companies from IAMAI governing council, because there was a sense that IAMAI and Indian internet organisations were rubber stamping demands of Big Tech; and people were particularly upset with Google issues related to Play Store and billing policies.

These results come after a controversy erupted in April when IAMAI, whose members include both Indian companies and large foreign companies, argued against the need for a separate digital competition framework aimed at regulating “anti-competitive practices” by Big Tech companies, in a draft submission.

Indian entrepreneurs had slammed IAMAI, saying that a digital competition law was indeed necessary and insinuated that the industry body’s stance on the matter reflected the composition of its leadership.

Many Indian entrepreneurs and a few Big Tech companies had thrown their hats in the ring for the much-coveted posts of the chairperson, vice chairperson, and treasurer.

Outgoing executive council members include Google’s country head and vice president Sanjay Gupta as chairman, Meta’s director and head of India public policy Shivnath Thukral as vice chairperson, and Razorpay CEO and co-founder Harshil Mathur as treasurer.