New Board and Council Elected to Guide a Resilient Future for Consumers
Late last year our Global Congress marked a new governance term at Consumers International, seeing the election of our Board and Council who will provide strategic direction and help step change our vision over the next four years. Today we announce all members of our new Board and Council - highly reputable in their regions with demonstrable experience in consumer protection.
Our president and vice president
We are delighted that Marimuthu Nadason and Gilly Wong have been re-elected for a second term as our President and Vice President respectively.
Marimuthu is President of the Federation of Malaysian Consumer Association (FOMCA). He has decades of experience in the field, including in positions to advance consumer protection policy and standards both within Malaysia and the Asian region. Likewise, Gilly is Chief Executive Officer of the Hong Kong Consumer Council and amongst many achievements led the first cross-strait symposium on consumer protection in the Greater China Region in 2014, and has played led pertinent discussion on digital rights, sustainable consumption and other topics at our high profile events.
Over the past four years, both leaders have provided guidance and resilience through adversity – a pandemic, geopolitical turbulence, the cost-of-living crisis – which have affected our Members and consumers everywhere.
Diversity and geographic breadth
Nine consumer advocacy organisations are represented on our Board and 22 on our Council. They cover major geographies of the world with representation across Francophone and Anglophone Africa, Hispanophone Latin America, North America, North Europe, Eurasia, Asia and the Pacific.
In addition to geographic breadth their composition supports important efforts to advance gender equality in consumer advocacy and beyond. We are delighted that half of our Council comprise females and over two thirds are represented on our Board.
Representation also covers Low- and Middle-Income countries as well as fragile and conflict affected states, with leading organisations represented from Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Sudan and the Commonwealth of Independent States. In their respective countries these organisations have provided a bedrock of support to consumers through conflict, political turmoil, climate change disasters and financial crises.
Despite the challenges of the past four years, Consumers International pivoted to support greater connection across members, the Next Generation and a wider array of marketplace actors.
Our Vision
Over the next four years – together with Consumers International leadership – we will advance three core strands of our Theory of Change to:
- Create a Fair and Safe Digital Experience
- Make Sustainable Consumption the Norm
- Deliver a New Social Contract where Consumer Voices are Heard.
This means continuing our work to share timely consumer insights on the global stage, build more bridges between business, government and civil society and drive campaigns and innovation for better policy and business practice. Lessons learnt and shared from across eminent organisations on our Board and Council will be valuable to that. Some select examples of our Board and Council Members' success includes:
- Which? (UK) campaigning to see The Online Safety Bill become law, marking a major step towards a safer internet.
- CHOICE (Australia) advocating globally with Consumers International and nationally for better regulation of Buy Now Pay Later products. This saw the government commit to recommendations.
- ASPEC (Peru) helping to see regulation against electricity cut off.
- Consumer Reports (USA) driving forward innovation through their permission slip tool, to work as an intermediary between business, government and consumers to improve data protection for millions.