Those in the running include Harsh Jain of Dream 11, Rajesh Magow of Makemytrip, Sameer Nigam of PhonePe, Harshil Mathur of RazorPay, and Anupam Mittal of Shaadi.com.
Other names include Sandeep Aggarwal of Droom, Ashish Kashyap of IndMoney, Ritesh Malik of Innov8, Suchi Mukherjee of LimeRoad, Rohan Verma of MapmyIndia, Upasana Taku of MobiKwik, Dinesh Agrawal of IndiaMart, Vishwas Patel of InfiBeam Avenues, Umang Bedi of Verse (DailyHunt), and Alok Bajpai of Ixigo among others.
Executives at BharatPe, BillDesk, Cred, InfoEdge, InMobi and Paytm are also in the running.
People aware of the matter said the idea is to have greater “representation of Indian firms” in the 24-member governing council of the influential lobby group, which is currently “dominated and led by foreign big tech companies”.
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Members are encouraging each other to vote for representatives of homegrown firms this time and in large numbers.
Currently the chair and co-chair of IAMAI are from Google and Meta.
Murugavel Janakiraman, CEO of BharatMatrimony, who is contesting in the elections, told ET it is imperative for Indian startups to be on the executive council of the IAMAI as it is one of the oldest internet and mobile associations in the country.
“Today it has been hijacked by global big tech companies who form only around 5-10% of the 400 members of the organisation but have been at the helm of decision making since their representatives have been in leadership positions and have been setting the narrative,” he said.
“We view these elections as very important and are all contested so that we can be part of the executive council and set the agenda to benefit Indian startups.”
The voting will conclude on May 22.
A total of 83 executives are contesting the elections to the 24-member IAMAI governing council.
Among the MNC, representatives from firms including Airbnb, Amazon, Facebook (Meta), Google, Netflix, and Visa are in the running.
“IAMAI must change its governing council leadership and also change the representations it is submitting to the government, so that it accurately represents Indian interests,” said Rohan Verma, CEO and executive director of MapmyIndia.
Emails sent to the companies remained unanswered till press time Monday.
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 cofounder Harshil Mathur as treasurer.
News of the elections comes close on the heels of IAMAI’s submissions recently drawing sharp criticism from prominent Indian startup founders who accused the industry grouping of furthering views of big tech companies.
ET had reported on May 2 that India’s top internet entrepreneurs are up in arms against what they term as a lack of “credence” in IAMAI. These founders are demanding a change in the leadership of the apex body, which they contend has become a “mouthpiece of big tech,” while failing to represent the interests of homegrown digital companies.
“It’s distressing to know that IAMAI is parroting and promoting views that are anti-Indian and pro-foreign big tech,” Verma had said at the time. “I hope everyone realises that the chair and vice chair of IAMAI are from the foreign big tech. Sad to see an organisation originally founded by and for Indian companies, taken over and now promoting a false narrative.”
Shaadi.com founder Anupam Mittal too took to Twitter at the time and said, “Startups are strongly in favour of a strong anti-monopoly Digital Act. In fact, IAMAI is a failing lobby for big tech propaganda and misinformation.”
In a press statement, IAMAI said 83 members of the IAMAI would be contesting the election.
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.
Elections are conducted every two years at IAMAI and the terms of both the governing council and the executive council are two years.
The results of the election will be declared at the end of May 2023, and the new governing council will take over after the annual general meeting in June 2023.
“IAMAI has a very transparent and regular process of elections to the extent that we do not allow solicitation and post-election if any member has any concern the results can be duly audited,” Subho Ray, president of IAMAI, said in the press statement.
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