Other forms: panjandrums
You can refer to the bossy, self-important president of your school's French club as a panjandrum, especially when she marches around assigning everyone tasks.
Something about the word panjandrum suggests subcontinental origin, but it's actually a made-up word from the eighteenth century, designating an important and often overbearing person. The word was also commandeered in World War II to refer to a failed experimental weapon meant to breach sea walls.