The IoT M2M Council (IMC) has elected Kim Bybjerg, vice president at Tata Communications, and Romil Bahl, president and CEO of Kore, as their new chairman and vice chairman, respectively.

Nominations and voting took place at the IMC’s Annual General Meeting, held online due to the pandemic last month. The IMC is the largest trade association dedicated to the global IoT sector, comprised of 25,000 enterprise users, product makers and app developers as rank-and-file members.

The IoT market is expected to see strong growth, with some analysts projecting more than 25 billion connected devices and almost $600bn in total service revenue by the end of 2024.

“With connectivity driving the digital-first economy, IoT is hailed as the tipping point for the growth of organisations,” said Bybjerg. “The IMC mission is to accelerate the adoption of IoT technology for the public good. We do this by bringing IoT buyers and sellers together.”

In response to the pandemic, the IMC has introduced an entire series of online events for 2021 and the group also maintains an exclusive relationship with the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), for which it produces a live conference and large pavilion covering IoT infrastructure in Las Vegas.

Additionally, the IMC publishes template RFPs and guidelines for IoT technology sourcing, software tools that help buyers identify their needs, a library of over 200 IoT use cases, and eight vertical market push-content channels.

Both Bybjerg and Bahl bring decades of experience to their roles. Bybjerg has held senior IoT sales positions at KPN, Vodafone and more. Prior to his lead role at Kore, Bahl has held CEO positions at both private and public companies.

“I am honoured to be selected by the IMC board as vice chair,” said Bahl. “The future of the IoT M2M Council is bright as what I call the decade of IoT kicks off in 2021, and Kim and I take the leadership mantle seriously.”

The IMC is the largest trade group dedicated to the global IoT and M2M sector. Board sustainer companies include 1NCE, Aeris, AVSystem, BeamLive, BICS, Digi, Fractus Antenna, HPE, iBasis, IoT Launch, Kore, Losant, Microsoft Azure IoT, MultiTech, NimbeLink, Pod Group, Quectel, Software AG, Somos, Taoglas, Tata Communications, Telit, U-Blox and Vodafone.