The 2026 ICA General Assembly on 15 September in Panama will include elections for the ICA President and At-Large Directors for the Global Board. This year, there are 25 candidates standing for 15 At-Large Director seats, who are nominated and elected by ICA members.
There are 30 seats on the global Board: the President, elected by the Members; four Vice Presidents, being the President elected in each of the ICA’s four geographical Regions; one member appointed by each of the ICA’s eight Sectoral Organisations; the President of the Youth Committee; the President of the Gender Equality Committee; and 15 At-large Directors elected by the Members.
The last elective General Assembly was held in Seville, Spain in 2022.
This year, Ariel Enrique Guarco is the sole candidate for president, while there are 25 At-Large Candidates spanning 24 countries: Brazil (Márcio Lopes De Freitas), Canada (Marie-Josée Paquette), China (Yuyan Wang), Colombia (Maria Eugenia Pérez), Ethiopia (Mesfin Gebreselassie), France (Bastien Sibille), India (Dileep Sanghani), Iran (Bahman Abdollahi), Italy (Attolio Dadda), Japan (Yoshito Shinno), Jordan (Abdel-Fattah Shalabi), Kenya (James Njue Njiru), Malaysia (Abdul Fattah Abdullah), Mexico (José Ricardo Téllez Barragán), Nigeria (two candidates: Ojo Oladayo Akindehinde and Adeyemi Emmanuel Badejo), Paraguay (Simona Cavazzutti), Philippines (Marlon Rono), Poland (Ryszard Jaśkowski), Puerto Rico (Eliud Juarbe), Spain (Iñigo Albizuri), Türkiye (Ünal Örnek), United Kingdom (Rose Marley), United States (Douglas O'Brien), and Vietnam (Cao Xuan Thu Van).
You can find more details on the candidates, including biographies, here.
The Board’s governance role falls under three core duties: obeying relevant laws and regulations, acting in good faith, and exercising duty of care. It sets policy direction, oversees financial stability, and holds the Director-General accountable by scrutinising performance against agreed goals and objectives and monitoring reporting on that performance. It also carries responsibility for risk management and audit oversight.
Jeroen Douglas, Director General of the ICA, said: “Democracy is a core tenet of cooperation, and we are delighted that so many members are fielding candidates for this year’s At-Large Director seats. The ICA Board has enormous responsibility, stewarding the organisation through the challenges and complexities of our times, and we look forward to welcoming members to the General Assembly in Panama where they will exercise their democratic right and set the board for the next four years.”
