UK India Business Council Management Re-structuring
By Trisha Nagpal
With the recommencement of the Free Trade Agreement negotiations, the Board of UK-India Business Council (UKIBC) is excited by the increasingly substantial commercial opportunities in the UK India economic and trade corridor.
The recently announced Technology Security Initiative, an imminent refresh of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and a new Industrial Strategy due to be unveiled in a few months, coupled with heightened emphasis on bilateral trade and interactions between the countries, underscore the positive momentum within the relationship.
As the UK and India seek to exploit all the potential of the bilateral economic relationship, UKIBC is determined to build on its unique position as a business-led provider of high-quality consultancy and advocacy services alongside extensive networks for the benefit of businesses large and small and with close connections with both Governments.
At the same time, the accelerating development of upstream technology embedding itself into commercial innovation and processes is exactly where collaboration and co-creation between the UK and India is already recognised as a successful model for mutually beneficial development.
The UKIBC is aiming to anticipate, respond and indeed promote these opportunities. The Board has therefore decided to initiate significant organisational changes within the UKIBC, at pace, to strengthen the support we can give our members, clients and the broader business community in both the UK, India and to the UK and Indian Governments, as necessary.
The Board has approved a strategic plan to redeploy existing resources and to invest in people and systems anticipating the current and future business needs of our members, stakeholders and the wider community in the critical UK India corridor. In short, our ambition is to make UKIBC an organisation which will be future-fit for our members and stakeholders.
Richard (Dickie) McCallum, having successfully steered the UKIBC through a period of external headwinds, has decided that the time is right to step away from his role as Group CEO and director of UKIBC. We look forward to the continued involvement of Dickie in our critical Aerospace and Defence sector as well as scoping our expansion into additional connected sectors. We thank Dickie for his contributions as Group CEO and as a Director on UKIBC’s Board.
The UKIBC intends to seek a new Group CEO who will oversee these new developments and other potential strategic changes and who will steer the organisation into what will be a bright future in UK India bilateral relations.
In the interim, the UKIBC is delighted that Kishore Jayaraman OBE, a UKIBC Group Board member and until recently President, Rolls-Royce, India & South Asia, will assume the role of Group Interim CEO for the period until the new and permanent Group CEO is appointed. The Board looks forward to his tenure which will be critical to the ongoing transformation of the UKIBC.
We will shortly launch a public search in both India and the UK for a new Group CEO to take the organisation forward dynamically and to take advantage of all the opportunities. In the meantime, all enquiries should be addressed to recruitment@ukibc.com.
The position will be advertised with the Times online, on UKIBC’s website and on its social networks.
Once the search process is live, any enquiries about the position should be directed to Sapphire Partners which is supporting UKIBC in the Group CEO search process, on details to be communicated.
Richard Heald, OBE,
Chair UK India Business Council
