TORONTO, CANADA: Indo-Canadian CEO Karna Gupta, who made headlines in 2009 in stopping hostile takeover of his encryption company by BlackBerry, has been appointed the president and CEO of the Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC).

The apex body of the Canadian information and communications technology industry, ITAC member companies generate $155 billion in revenue each year.

Gupta has been the CEO of the Toronto-area Certicom Corporation which is a leader in encryption technology.

The technology developed by Gupta's company has made BlackBerry the darling of government officials and corporate honchos for secure transfer of messages and data.

But Gupta had to fight a hard legal battle with BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) when it made a $66-million "unfriendly" offer directly to Certicom's shareholders for its takeover to get exclusive access to encryption technology in 2009.

RIM had made the direct offer to Certicom shareholders after it failed to take over Certicom through talks with Gupta. Previously, Gupta worked as president at New Jersey-based Comverse Technologies which, under him, became the leader in telecom billing in emerging economies.

He has also been vice president at Bell Canada - a top telecom company.