USA Boxing Foundation Board of Directors member Elise Seignolle was recently voted as one of the 10 new Independent Directors of the International Boxing Association (IBA) Board of Directors after earning the most votes of all candidates during the final day of the IBA Extraordinary Congress in Istanbul, Turkey.
“I am grateful for all the support, however there is a lot of work to be done,” stated Seignolle. “I feel like this is a huge win with the top three Board of Directors that were voted on were females at the Women’s World Championships. This represents the start of a change in leadership and culture.”
“Elise is uniquely qualified to be an Independent Board of Director for IBA,” said Mike McAtee, USA Boxing Executive Director. “Her finance background will be invaluable in helping IBA with financial accountability and transparency. Also, her energy, business knowledge, ability to connect with people and her boxing tenacity will all be used to make a difference in helping change the leadership and culture of Olympic-style boxing.”
The election for the Board of Directors saw the following candidates elected:
Elise Seignolle, USA (106 votes)
Pearl Dlamini, Eswatini (88 votes)
Belhaj Abdeljaouad, Morocco (82 votes)
Kristy Harris, Australia (84 votes)
Zsuzsanna Toth, Hungary (71 votes)
Marta Forcen Celaya, Spain (63 votes)
Volodymyr Prodyvus, Ukraine (76 votes)
Yousuf Al-Kazim, Qatar (71 votes)
Jinquiang Zhou, China (69 votes)
Dian Gomez, Sri Lanka (69 votes)
Out of 155 voting National Boxing Federations, Seignolle’s 106 votes was 68% of the nations voting in her favor.
Per IBA’s aim for equal representation, at least five of the 10 elected directors had to be women, and only three candidates could be elected per continent.
Umar Kremlev was elected by acclamation to serve a second term as IBA President following the decision of Dutch Boxing Federation leader Boris van der Vorst being ineligible to run by the Boxing Independent Integrity Unit (BIIU).
The IBA Board consists of 18 members, Kremlev, heads of the five continental governing bodies, 10 independent directors and two representatives of the Athletes’ Committee