IAMAI elections: Meta, Amazon, Google, Netflix throw hat in the ring

Established in 2004, the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) is a industry body representing the digital services industry with over 500 Indian and multinational corporations as its members

Employees of foreign tech bigwigs like Meta, Amazon, Google, and Netflix are contesting the governing council elections of the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), one of the top tech lobby groups in the country, according to people aware of the matter.

This comes at a time when the industry body has been accused of "parroting" views of Big Tech companies. These allegations specifically pertain to the IAMAI's views on the need for a separate law to regulate "anti-competitive practices" by Big Tech companies. To the frustration of the Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem, the industry body has opposed it.

Many Indian entrepreneurs insinuated that IAMAI's position on the matter was directly related to the composition of the industry body's leadership, which included members of Big Tech companies such as Google and Meta. Such Indian companies asked for a change in IAMAI's structure.

In the ongoing election process, among the 83 candidates contesting the polls are employees of large foreign companies. Out of the 83, 24 candidates will be elected to form the governing council; and the top three, in terms of votes received, will form the industry body's executive council, which includes the chairperson, vice-chairperson, and treasurer.

Shivnath Thukral, Head of Public Policy, Facebook India; Ambika Khurana, director, Netflix India; Sandeep Ghosh, Country manager of Visa in India; Manish Tiwary, Country manager of Amazon's India consumer business; Mihir Rale, Chief Regional Counsel of Disney Star; Bikram Bedi, Google India, Anubhav Gupta, Senior Vice President of Mastercard and Amanpreet Bajaj, GM of Airbnb India are the candidates in the elections from India arms of major foreign tech and media companies.

Moneycontrol has reached out to the companies for confirmation.

It is important to note that Facebook India's Thukral is also a member of the outgoing executive council. Thukral served as the vice-chairperson.

Apart from representatives of large foreign companies, well-known Indian entrepreneurs such as Rohan Verma, the chief executive of MapMyIndia, and Murugavel Janakiraman, the founder of BharatMatrimony, who have recently been critical of IAMAI, have also thrown their hat into the ring.

Other contestants include Dream11 founder Harsh Jain, Razorpay founder Harshil Mathur, Innov8 founder Ritesh Malik, Info Edge CFO Chintan Thakkar, IndMoney founder Ashish Kashyap, Paytm senior vice president Rajendra Nalam, Cred senior executive Miten Sampat and Nazara founder Nitish Mittersain are some of the representatives of Indian tech firms who are contesting the elections.

"These elections have never been so important as this time due to the politicisation. IAMAI is not so heavyweight of a lobby group as yet like CII or Nasscom," said a person close to the developments.

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. Shubho Ray serves as president ex-officio on the executive council.

Apart from a few companies that are less than two years old, almost all 500-plus members of IAMAI are eligible to contest as well as vote in the elections. Currently, 65% of IAMAI's membership comprises Indian companies.

Recently, Union Minister of State for Electronics and Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar told Moneycontrol that the government will not allow Big Tech companies to "corner or grab policy", and Indian startups will be given the same importance when it comes to policymaking.

Commenting on the election process, Ray said, “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.”