At the Annual General Meeting of the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce held Thursday June 28, 2012, in Toronto, Mr. Naval Bajaj was elected the 25th President of the Chamber. He has been associated with the Chamber for the last three years, initially as a director and then as the Vice President.

Speaking about his priorities as the new President, Naval said, “Our Chamber is both a business organisation and a Diaspora organisation, and we will continue to stay focussed on our mandate of fostering Canada-India bilateral economic relations and promoting the interests of the Indian Diaspora in Canada.”

Elaborating on his core priorities, Naval explained that the two developments that have determined the course for the Chamber are of the growing bilateral economic cooperation between Canada and India and the steadily growing population of the Indo-Canadian Diaspora.

“We have evolved a grassroots approach to build our membership, and we will continue on the same path,” Naval said, and emphasised that the Chamber’s councils in Alberta, British Council, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Manitoba and one in Ottawa would be revitalised to augment the councils’ membership.

Referring to the discussions that emerged during the annual general meeting, the new President observed that the process initiated by the previous board on issues of governance and the utilisation of the building corpus will lead to clear directives on both these issues that are important to the members.

“As the new President, I’ll work hard to meet the expectations of our members on these matters.”

Naval Bajaj is a Certified Business Consultant with 7-Eleven Canada where he is involved in strategic and financial planning. He holds a Master of Engineering, Master of Business Administration and Bachelors of Law degrees. Naval has held a number of leadership positions at IIM, SSM, Management Association of Gujarat Chamber of Commerce.