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Chairperson of IAMAI must now be from an Indian firm
Around 50% of all seats in the IAMAI’s governing council must also be reserved for Indian firms while the others will be open to all types of members during elections
NEW DELHI: The chairperson of one of the top industry bodies for technology companies, the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), must now be from an Indian company, the body’s members ruled on October 10 during an extraordinary general meeting.
Around 50% of all seats in the IAMAI’s governing council must also be reserved for Indian firms while the others will be open to all types of members during elections, five individuals who attended the EGM told HT. The body also ruled that to become a member of the governing council, the individuals must be founders, co-founders, chairperson, country heads, CEOs, COOs, or executive directors.
An Indian company has been defined as one that has a permanent establishment in India, and whose parent company receives majority of its revenue from India.
Exceptions have been made for software-as-a-service (SaaS) and similar companies where the company might be Indian but a bulk of its revenues might come from outside India.
Moneycontrol first reported about the passage of these three resolutions.
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These resolutions were passed by the 25-member governing council earlier. These were first discussed at least two months ago to wrestle control of policymaking on technology issues from non-Indian Big Tech platforms.
IAMAI is headed by an executive council that is currently chaired by Dream11’s Harsh Jain. Its vice-chairperson is MakeMyTrip’s Rajesh Magow while Times Internet’s Satyan Gajwani is the treasurer. Subho Ray is the IAMAI president. When HT contacted Ray, he refused to comment stating that he does not talk to the media.
Do Indian startups need ‘quota’?
During the meeting, Shweta Rajpal Kohli, chief public policy officer at Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India and Southeast Asia), said that Indian startups and founders are strong and vibrant enough to compete with the rest of the world. “They don’t need any reservations to compete in the elections of an industry body,” she said according to all the individuals HT spoke to. It is understood that she argued that such a move would undermine the Indian startup ecosystem which should be capable of competing with foreign firms on their merit without needing quotas.
Kohli, like half of the 100-odd members, had joined the meeting via Zoom. The other half attended the meeting in person in Mumbai.
Kohli, along with other people, pointed out that restricting the membership of the governing council to particular title holders is a restrictive move, especially for the startup ecosystem where innovative and creative job titles reign supreme. Due to the passed resolutions, the CFO of a company cannot become a governing council member.
An unidentified attendee agreed with her and said that even Elon Musk, despite owning Twitter, could not become a member of IAMAI’s governing council on behalf of the microblogging platform since his formal designation there is “Chief Twit”. Jain and Magow said that they were responding to the demands of the ecosystem.
Apart from the executive council members who are from Dream11, MakeMyTrip and Times Internet, the meeting was attended by representatives from Google, Meta, Snap, Dell, Spotify, Cred, Bharat Matrimony, Ixigo, Razorpay and FiMoney among others.
HT reached out to Peak XV but didn’t get a comment immediately.
What makes an Indian company?
Concerns about what actually is an Indian company were also raised. Several prominent Indian startups are incorporated outside India, and scores of them receive significant amounts of foreign funding.
Berges Malu, senior director of public policy at ShareChat, pointed out that Indian companies that have global ambitions would get excluded if their revenue came from global clients. Jain replied that such companies would be exempted under “SaaS and similar services”. Malu then asked for an amendment to include social media and other digital services to which Jain said that this could be covered by a clarification instead.
Questions were also raised why only individuals from companies can become members of the governing council and not limited liability partnerships, or LLPs. An individual, who heads an Indian company, explained to HT that this was done to ensure that the IAMAI serves the interests of Indian companies and not venture capital firms and the like.
Resolution passed without a vote
At the end of the hour-long meeting, Jain, Magow and Ray said that since there was no opposition, the three resolutions would be considered as passed. They said that no voting was required since no amendments were proposed, and clarifications issued later would suffice, according to three people HT spoke to.
The incumbent governing council was elected in May after Jain, Magow and Gajwani replaced Google’s country head and vice president Sanjay Gupta, Meta’s director and head of public policy in India Shivnath Thukral, and Razorpay CEO Harshil Mathur, respectively.
The Indian startup ecosystem banded together to oust representatives from Big Tech platforms as they felt that IAMAI had become Big Tech’s mouthpiece instead of theirs. IAMAI’s lack of action on Google’s Play Store and billing policies, along with its stance on the need for a separate digital competition law, were turning points. At least 14 Indian companies, including Hotstar and Bharat Matrimony, have challenged Google’s billing policy in the Madras high court.
