The European Confederation of Directors' Associations (ecoDa) was created in December 2004. Its objective is to represent and defend the interests of the various associations of company directors in Europe vis-à-vis decision makers in the European Commission .

ILA’s participation is essential to fulfill these objectives. On 25 April 2005, ILA thus became a fully signed-up member of ecoDa.

Working Committee of 'ecoDa

ecoDa (http://www.ecoda.org) has four working committees to which  all member associations are invited/encouraged to participate:

• «Membership Committee» manages international relations and the geographical spread of ecoDa.
• «Policy Committee» whose competences include looking over European regulatory initiatives and relations with the EC.
• «Sponsorship and External Communication Committee» whose objective is to define and implement ecoDa’s communication and image policy.
• «Benchmarking and Information Committee».

ecoDa’s position paper can be viewed here…

The founders

The three founding associations of eoDa are:

• «The Institute of Directors» (http://www.iod.com)
  The IoD was founded in London in 1903 and consists of around 55,000 members in the UK, plus around 20,000 in other countries such as Ireland. The IoD has become the principal centre of training and development for directors of companies in the UK and the former Commonwealth.

• «L’Association Belge des Administrateurs» (http://www.administrateurs.be)
  The AB was founded in Brussels in 1998. It has 500 members that participate in its mercantile and non-mercantile programmes.

• «L’Institut Français des Administrateurs» (http://www.ifa-asso.com)
  The IFA was founded in Paris in 2003 following an initiative of the Paris Chamber of Commerce, Euronext and the Association Française de la Gestion. At present it has 1,000 active members.

Since its inception, a host of organisations have joined ecoDa: in 2005 ILA and the Finnish Institute, in 2006 the Spanish, Czech and Slovenian institutes, and in 2007 the Croatian and Polish institutes became members.

• The Finnish Institute: Hallitusammattilaiset ry (the Finnish Association of Professional Board Members) (http://www.hallitusammattilaiset.fi) is an association for professional board members in Finland. It was set up in 2001 with the purpose of promoting good professional practice. To date it consists of 150 members.
  
• The Spanish Institute: Instituto de Consejeros-Administradores (http://www.iconsejeros.com)
  
• The Czech Institute: Czech Institute of Directors (http://www.ciod.cz)
  
• The Slovenian Institute: ZDRUZENJE CLANOV NADZORNIH SVETOV  (http: //www.zdruzenje-ns.si)
• The Croatian Institute: Hrvatska udruga certificiranih clanova nadzornih odbora (http://www.hucno.hr)
• The Polish Institute: Polski Instytut Dyrektorow (http://www.pid.org.pl)

In January 2009:

• ICSA : the British institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administration
• KPMG