International entrepreneur and philanthropist Ram Gidoomal CBE is Chair Designate of Traidcraft, Christian-based the fair trade company and development charity.
Ram is a successful businessman, formerly UK Chief Executive of the Inlaks Group, an international food commodity company, who over the last twenty years has used his business acumen to support the work of numerous public and charitable organisations.
He said: “Traidcraft has played a pioneering role in the fair trade movement and I am honoured to have been asked to serve as its chair. I look forward to working with the team as it embarks on a new strategic period in the vital work of helping producer communities in the developing world flourish and prosper.”
Traidcraft Chief Executive Paul Chandler said: “We are delighted that Ram is joining us as Chair of our Board. He will bring many fresh insights and perspectives to bear on our mission, drawn from his wide experience in business, charity, church and government circles. The next few years are going to be very exciting!”
Born into a Hindu family, brought up in the Sikh faith and educated at a Muslim school in Kenya, Ram became a Christian believer as a young adult.
Deeply affected by the poverty he witnessed in India, he went on to co-found the Christmas Cracker project that mobilised UK teenagers to raise money for the developing world in the 1980s and 90s.
His current roles include Chair of the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education, Chair of the South Asian Development Partnership Trust, Chair of Allia, the social profit society; Board member of the International Justice Mission (USA) and Chair of the Lausanne Movement International Board of Directors.
He will assume his role as Traidcraft Chair once his election to the Board is approved by this year’s AGM in September.
He succeeds Chris Stephens, who stood down after five years on the Traidcraft Board to take up his new appointment as Chairman of the Judicial Appointments Commission.
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For more information or to request an interview and/or a hi-res version of the photograph, contact Peter Collins on 0191 497 6465 or at [email protected]
Notes to Editors:
- Established in 1979, as a Christian response to poverty, Traidcraft fights poverty through trade, helping people in developing countries to transform their lives. We run development programmes in some of the poorest countries in the world, and campaign in the UK and internationally to bring about trade justice.
- Traidcraft comprises a trading company, with annual sales of more than £18m and some 5,000 shareholders, as well as a charity, Traidcraft Exchange, which spends around £3.5m per annum on development projects and advocacy work. It is the UK’s only development charity that specialises in making trade work for the poor in developing countries.
Photograph here [JPG – 414.81 KB] of Ram Gidoomal, newly-appointed Board Chair.
Photos from Boston 2011 are available on Flickr.
NB This release has been handled byRam Gidoomal to be the New Traidcraft Chair Naomi Frizzell, Lausanne Movement Chief Communications Officer [email protected].