The ChangeMakers Council for International Relations & Diplomacy
Mumbai: The IMC Chamber of Commerce and Industry marked its 120th Foundation Day with a celebration that was as much a look forward as a look back, as the chamber used the milestone to frame a larger conversation on India’s place in the unfolding artificial intelligence revolution.
Delivering the keynote as Chief Guest, Ms. Arundhati Bhattacharya — President & CEO, Salesforce India, South Asia & ASEAN, and Chairperson of the Swift India Board — offered a vision of India not as a follower in the AI era but as a potential architect of it.
“AI can create many more opportunities because it allows us to fulfil demands that we are currently unable to serve,” Bhattacharya said. “India has the opportunity not merely to participate in this technology revolution, but to lead it and perhaps even redefine it.”
Her address struck a note that resonated with the occasion itself: an institution built over twelve decades weighing what its legacy actually means in a moment of technological disruption. “Legacy should give us confidence,” she said. “It should never become an excuse.”
For IMC, the line captured the spirit of the day. Since its founding, the chamber has positioned itself as a champion of Indian enterprise — shaping policy conversations, backing industry, and contributing to the country’s economic direction through some of its most consequential decades. The 120th anniversary celebrations were framed not as a retrospective exercise but as a reaffirmation of that founding mandate, updated for an economy now being reshaped by AI.
Bhattacharya’s remarks placed India’s demographic and digital-infrastructure advantages at the center of the opportunity: a market with vast unmet demand that AI-enabled services could finally address at scale, and an enterprise base large and varied enough to pioneer applications the rest of the world has yet to build.
The message to the room of industry leaders was unambiguous — that the same instinct that built IMC’s institutional credibility over 120 years must now be turned toward ambition rather than comfort.
120 Years of Legacy. A Future of Possibilities.
As IMC begins its next chapter, the chamber has signalled that its founding purpose — empowering Indian enterprise — remains intact, even as the terrain it operates on shifts beneath it.
Reporting for The ChangeMakers Magazine.
