Unilever’s Paul Polman takes over as ICC Chairman from Airtel’s Sunil Mittal

The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) on Thursday said that Sunil Bharti Mittal, Founder and Chairman of Bharti Enterprises has stepped down as the ICC Chairperson with immediate effect as he completes his two-year tenure.

Mittal will assume the role of ICC Honorary Chair commencing June 21. Mittal was the third business leader from India in the history of ICC to be appointed as the Chairman of ICC. He will be succeeded by Paul Polman, CEO, Unilever as ICC Chairman and Ajay Banga, President and CEO MasterCard as the next ICC First Vice-Chair.

During his tenure, Mittal has worked towards promoting rules-based policy-making to enable inclusive trade, innovation and job-creation on behalf of more than six-million members worldwide. He served as ICC Chair since June 15, 2016, and prior to that as ICC First Vice-Chair (2015 -2016) and Vice-Chair (2013-2015).

“As Chair of one of the world’s largest business organisations representing private-sector views before national governments and intergovernmental bodies around the world, it has been a pleasure to lead and play a constructive role in giving shape to the voice of global business to support inclusive growth,” Mittal said.

During his term as ICC Chair, Mittal also highlighted the potential of e-commerce to revolutionise global trade flows and the central role that the World Trade Organisation can play in underpinning an open, reliable and secure global digital economy and in helping small businesses access global markets.

In the concluding months of his ICC term, Mittal also responded to rising trade tensions caused by tit-for-tat tariff increases, warning that a progressive closing of the world’s largest economy to trade would damage both US and global growth prospects. The Hindu BusinessLine