Untitled Document
Caribbean MBA Conference
Harvard Business Club & Wharton Caribiz
Caribbean MBA Conference
 
Keynote Speakers  
 

Honorable Bruce Golding
Prime Minister of Jamaica

The Honorable Bruce Golding took office as Jamaica's eighth Prime Minister on September 11, 2007, following victory by the Jamaica Labor Party (JLP).

Defined by a steely resolve to improve the fortunes of the Jamaican people, he immediately abolished tuition fees in all public secondary schools. With steadfast belief in his vision of a Jamaica where "everyone might not be rich but no one has to be poor", Bruce Golding has demonstrated leadership in making changes to improve people's lives. His administration debated and passed a legislation that removed user fees at all public health facilities. He is reshaping the Jamaican landscape by reviving the economy through job creating investments and uprooting the psychology of decline.

At age 24, Bruce Golding became the youngest person to be elected to Gordon House, Jamaica's House of Representatives. He was Member of Parliament for 19 years for the West and Central St. Catherine constituencies and a Senator for nine years. In 1980, he was appointed Minister of Construction, and between 1989 and 1995, he served as Opposition Minister of Finance and Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. In 1995 Bruce Golding helped to form the National Democratic Movement.

Prime Minister Golding earned a Degree in Economics from the University of the West Indies. He and his wife, businesswoman Lorna Golding, have been married for 35 years. They have a son, two daughters and a grandchild.

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The Honorable Oliver Clarke, OJ
Chairman and Managing Director of The Gleaner

The Hon. Oliver F.  Clarke joined The Gleaner Company Limited (Jamaica) in 1976 in the capacity of Managing Director and after several months was appointed as Chairman. He has held positions such as the President of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica, Chairman of Jamaica National Building Society, the Former Chair of the Jamaican Parliamentary Salaries Review Committee, the Director of Jamaica Producers Group Ltd and the Director of Independent Radio Company, Caribbean Media Corporation, PALS Jamaica which teaches conflict resolution in schools, and the Peace Education Foundation in Miami.

Mr. Clarke served as President of the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) between 1997 and 1998. In 2009  Mr. Clarke was conferred with an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws LL.D. (honoris causa) by both the University of the West Indies and the University of Technology.   Early in 2006 he received the American Friends of Jamaica Humanitarian Award.  In 2004 he was made a Caribbean Luminary of the American Foundation for the University of the West Indies for his work both in the Caribbean and internationally.  In 1998, he was awarded the Order of Jamaica and was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) in 1997. He received the Americas Award in 1990.

He is married to Monica Ladd, Attorney-at-law, and they have one child, Alexandra.

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Joseph Matalon
President, Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica

Mr. Joseph M. Matalon, Chairman of the ICD Group, is the new President of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ).  He was unanimously elected to the Organisation’s top position at the Council Meeting held Thursday, June 18, 2009 at the offices of the PSOJ.

Joseph M. Matalon is no stranger to the leadership of The PSOJ as he served as Vice President of the Organisation for several years.  He brings with him a wealth of experience in Corporate Jamaica and has been involved in a number of special committees established to advise Governments on critical financial and economic issues.  He is perhaps most renowned for his work on successive tax reform committees.

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Clovis Metcalfe
Managing Director, First Caribbean

Clovis Metcalfe is a 35 year veteran of the bank, and serves in the role of Managing Director in Jamaica. As well as overseeing the bank's day-to-day operations in Jamaica, Mr. Metcalfe plays a key role in managing the bank's relationships with the Jamaica government, Regulators and key large customers.

Mr. Metcalfe has served FirstCaribbean in several leadership capacities throughout his banking career. These have included areas of branch management and Corporate Credit. His wealth of knowledge and experience has therefore made him an ideal candidate to serve in this capacity, having served more recently as Head of Corporate Banking in Jamaica.

Mr. Metcalfe is the recipient of numerous awards for service excellence, including FirstCaribbean's Player of the Series Award for 2006. He was also recognized as CIBC Jamaica's ‘Employee of the Year' in 1986 and won the ‘Annual Achievers Award' in 2001. He also received the ‘President's Award', a prestigious award reserved exclusively for the top five percent of CIBC Achievers worldwide.

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Colm Delves
CEO, Digicel Group

Colm joined Digicel in May 2004 in the role of Chief Financial Officer before taking up his current role as Chief Executive Officer in June 2005.

Colm drives the company to deliver on our success by building and fostering the things that make Digicel a world class organisation – our unique style of working (bold deal making, speed to market, customer focus, business optimisation) and our people. All this translates to better value, better service and better network coverage for our customers.

Prior to his role in Digicel, Colm provided consultancy services to a number of companies, including O’Brien Cellular Ltd., owned by Denis O’Brien. From September 1993 to October 2003, Colm held the position of Chief Financial Officer of Hibernian Foods plc., a Nasdaq-quoted company in the manufacturing industry.

Colm qualified as a chartered accountant with KPMG Dublin and is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered accountants in Ireland. He holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting and finance from Dublin City University and is based with his family in Kingston, Jamaica.

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Panelists

 

John Azar  
Managing Director, KingAlarm

After graduating from university in 1994, John returned to Jamaica to join his family business, L.P. Azar Limited.  Feeling security to be his passion, he subsequently worked for four years as the Customer Relations Manager at the then largest electronic security provider in Jamaica. His stint there took him through all the departments and he played an integral role in IT, operations and sales.  

He later rejoined the family business in 1998 and decided to branch out into an electronic security company of my own. In 2000, KingAlarm was born and officially started operations in 2001. It was a difficult feat to tackle the large players in the industry at the time, but KingAlarm set about the challenge with a focus on exemplary customer service and a cost effective pricing structure with the aim of making electronic security not just a luxury, but available to more and more Jamaicans.  

At the time, standard Panic Alarm Systems were selling for about $25,000 plus tax.  KingAlarm took the bold step of offering these systems for free and retaining the ownership of the equipment while benefiting from the all important recurring revenue. The response was overwhelming and the industry was transformed as all companies followed suit.  

Under Mr. Azar’s stewardship, KingAlarm has pioneered many other aspects of the industry and concepts such as Roadside Assistance and Ambulance Response services were in fact conceptualized by KingAlarm, insofar as making them part of a standard alarm package.  Eight years later, KingAlarm has become not just the largest electronic security provider in Jamaica, but in the entire Caribbean serving in excess of 8,000 client locations and, by extension, perhaps over 40,000 customers.  KingAlarm now specializes in all aspects of Electronic Security systems including, but not limited to, Panic, Medical and Intrusion Detection Systems, Fire/Smoke Detection Systems, Automatic Gate Openers, Intercoms, CCTV Systems, Access Control Systems, Vehicle Tracking Systems, Alarm Verification Systems and more.  

In 2007 , KingAlarm finalized an exclusive partnership with mobile telecommunication giants, Digicel, for an exclusive partnership in Vehicle Tracking/Fleet Management Systems.  In the same year, KingAlarm invested in a fleet of armored Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) and became the only company in Jamaica to offer such a large fleet to compliment its Close Protection Agents in offering true VIP Close Protection Services.  

Somewhat miraculously, KingAlarm's growth has been constant and its client base continues to climb mainly due to an unwavering belief that exemplary customer service and cost effective pricing will inevitably lead to success. KingAlarm was one of the very first recipients of the PSOJ Job Creation award and was just last year nominated for the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce's Best of Chamber award. 

Mr. Azar is a graduate of Florida International University.  He is married with four children.

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Archibald Campbell
Deputy Chairman of Jamaica Money Market Brokers (JMMB)

Mr. Campbell is Deputy Chairman of Jamaica Money Market Brokers (JMMB) where he also serves as Chairman of the Pension Trustees Meeting, Risk, Credit and Finance Audit Sub Committees of the Board of Directors. Mr. Campbell is also President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Jamaica. He is committed to nation development and currently provides public service as a member of the Sugar Industry Negotiation Team for the divestment of the Sugar Company of Jamaica on behalf of the Government of Jamaica. 

Currently, Mr. Campbell is a faculty member at his alma mater, lecturing both undergraduate and graduate courses in the Department of Management Studies with focus on Accounting & Banking. He is a graduate of the University of the West Indies where he read for both his B.Sc. Accounting and his M.Sc. Accounting degrees. Mr. Campbell is currently writing his doctoral thesis on “debt management in highly indebted countries.

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Professor Miguel Carrillo
Executive Director, Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business

Professor Miguel Carrillo was appointed Executive Director of the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business on June 15, 2009. Professor Carrillo has taught for over 21 years in 12 countries in three languages, specializing in innovation and strategy.

Professor Carrillo obtained his Industrial Engineering degree from Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITEC) in 1988. He entered the field of finance, eventually becoming Finance Director at Hewlett Packard in Mexico, where he also obtained his MBA. He obtained his PhD from a joint program between Concordia and McGill Universities.

As Dean at ITEC he more than doubled undergraduate enrollment and quadrupled graduate enrollment. He also encouraged and sponsored the top professors to attain their PhD and brought in new faculty from England, Spain and India.

Professor Carrillo designed the first Finance PhD program in Latin America which is still operating as one of the best programs in Mexico and led to him being named the best “Up and Comers Under 30” in a Mexican publication.

As Director of the Miami campus, Adolfo Ibanez School of Management, Professor Carrillo was successful in attracting new professors and creating in-house MBA-type corporate programs with Telefonica of Peru and Ernst & Young.

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Patrick Casserly
Managing Director, ACS e-Services

Patrick Casserly, Managing Director of ACS e-Services, is the industry leader and on the cutting edge of near-shore info-matics in Jamaica. Evolving from a small data entry operation nine years ago into the largest English-speaking near-shore call center and back-office processing solutions company, is a booming business.  

The single largest employer in Western Jamaica and the employer of choice in Montego Bay, Patrick currently has contract with US fortune 500 companies such as Delta Airlines and Xerox.  With a staff of over 4000 in Montego Bay, Kingston and St. Lucia the number of employees will still increase with these programs.  

A Jamaican National, Patrick grew up in Kingston but spent his college years at the University of North Carolina.  Upon graduation, he accepted a sales position with New Era Computers in Asheville, North Carolina and later that year became the Operations Manager of the Regional AutoDesk distributor.  This provided him with a unique viewpoint of American business practices that he would bring back to Jamaica.  

Returning to his homeland mid 1995, Patrick became Marketing Manager at Eagle Information Systems and was instrumental in the company receiving the prestigious IBM Blue Ribbon Award for its sales performance in 1995 and 1996.  In late 1996 he took on the additional role as a Technology Advisor to the group chairman.   

In July 1997, Mirand Response Systems recruited him as Account Manager.  In April of the following year, he became Managing Director and was later promoted to Vice President of the Jamaica division of National Processing Company, headquartered in Louisville, KY  when that company purchased Mirand.  

In 2000, Patrick founded e-Services with back-office processing for one client and a staff of 35.  Soon, the company expanded to an additional client who needed a call center and the business was on a roll.  E-Services saw 55% growth annually.   

In 2009, e-Services was sold to a publicly traded company ACS - Affiliated Computer Services and Patrick has stayed on as Managing Director.  

Patrick has served as a Director on the Jamaica Freezone Board, which sponsors locations to receive certain privileges; the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce, the Jamaica Manufacture's Association and the Trade Board Ltd.  He currently sits on the board of the JAMPRO.  

Patrick was named The Business Leader of Jamaica in 2004 for the year 2003.  

He resides just outside of Montego Bay, with his wife, Katrin and son Phillip.

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Ivor Carryl
Programme Manager, CARICOM Single Market and Economy; CSME Unit Caribbean Community Secretariat

Ivor Carryl is an economist by training and he has spent the majority of his professional life on regional development administration and integration. He has spent much of his career in the fields of industrial and trade policy interacting in the process with the political directorate, technocrats and private sector at the regional level within CARICOM.

Ivor first taught at Mc Kenzie High School, then worked as an Industrial Economist at the Guyana National Engineering Corporation before proceeding on a long and continued sojourn at the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat where he has spent the majority of his professional career.  He has some twenty five years in the field of Regional Integration, starting in the Secretariat as a Junior Professional Staff in the Directorate of Regional Trade and Economic Integration. He worked in the field of industrial policy ending his stint in this discipline in 1996 as Deputy Programme Manager Industrial Development.  

Mr. Carryl was a Member of the Inter-Governmental Task Force (IGTF) from 1996 to 2001 during the period when revision of the Treaty of Chaguaramas was negotiated and was actively involved in the negotiation of Protocols II, IV, V and VIII. He developed and coordinated implementation of the Single Market Phase II Programme that financed completion of five of the nine Protocols which revised the Treaty.  He also conceived and developed the programme for removal of restrictions on the Right of Establishment, Provision of Services and Movement of Capital and is managing the successor CIDA funded “Trade Policy and Facilitation Project” which is preparing legislation to  assist Member States remove legal restrictions to the Right of  Establishment, Provision of Services and Movement of Capital.

Since May 1996 he has taken over the mantle of, Programme Manager, CARICOM Single Market and Economy with main areas of responsibility being: Intra-regional trade policy, trade liberalization, and CSME market integration.  He is currently supervising ongoing operations at the CARICOM Secretariat CSME Unit in Barbados with respect to the Single Market, including the Treaty’s Built-in-agenda issues.

Mr. Carryl was a distinction student from the class of 1981 at the University of Guyana, graduating with a Bachelors of Social Science Degree majoring in Economics. He then proceeded to England to finish a Master of Science Degree in the fields of “National Development and Investment Project Planning” from the University of Bradford. He has specialized training in the Fields of International Trade Policy and Trade Law at the World Trade Organisation in Geneva Switzerland. He has attended over the several years of his professional career, numerous specialized training courses in the fields of Finance and Tax Management, Regional Integration, Trade Policy, Industrial Policy and Competition Policy.

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Silburn Clarke
Founder and CEO of Spatial Innovision Limited

Silburn St. Aubyn Clarke is the Founder and CEO of Spatial Innovision Limited, the Caribbean’s premier geospatial entity. Silburn is a Chartered and Commissioned Land Surveyor who served the Jamaican public sector for 22 years before parlaying his expertise into the creation of his pioneering venture in 1998. Spatial Innovision has dominated the marketplace since its formation 12 years ago and currently enjoys a customer base spanning Bahamas to Guyana. Headquarters in Kingston with a branch office in Port of Spain, Spatial has been twice recognized as a Champion Services Exporter by the Jamaica Exporters Association. The company was a winner of the inaugural, and highly-competitive, 2009 Pioneers of Prosperity Competition for Caribbean Entrepreneurs. In 2008 Spatial was recognized as the inaugural National Commercial Bank (NCB) Regional Innovation Winner. For his role in shaping the local and regional geospatial industry over the last two decades, Silburn was accorded the GIS Lifetime Achievement Award by the Office of the Prime Minister in Jamaica in November 2009. 

Silburn holds an MBA(Finance) and an MSc (MIS) from University of the West Indies Mona and an MSC(Eng) from the University of London. He is currently enrolled in the DBA program at Mona School of Business with research interests in Entrepreneurship, Culture, Knowledge and 
Development. 

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Keith Collister
Director for Special Projects, Finance and Planning Division of the Sandals Group

Mr. Collister is the Director for Special Projects in the Finance and Planning Division of the Sandals Group. He started his career at Singer and Friedlander Merchant Bank in the City of London. On returning to Jamaica in 1993, he joined Life of Jamaica’s investment department as an analyst, was promoted to the position of investment officer for its overseas subsidiary Global Cayman, and was subsequently seconded to its largest subsidiary, Global Bahamas Holdings Limited, until late 1999.

In the year 2000, he joined the financial services division of leading Caribbean conglomerate Grace Kennedy, and had an integral role in the start up of both their stockbroking and mutual fund divisions. 

Mr. Collister holds an MA in Economics from Cambridge University, a Diploma in Accounting and Finance from the London School of Economics and an MBA in International Banking and Finance from Birmingham Business School.  

His consulting experience includes acting as a consultant for the Inter American Development Bank, writing a background paper on Jamaica’s financial crisis entitled “The Crisis in Jamaica’s Financial Sector” for its joint 2000 mission with the World Bank, and writing and presenting his paper “A new approach to development banking in Jamaica” for the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in late 2006. 

A financial journalist and columnist of note, he currently writes for the Jamaica Observer, having previously written for the Gleaner, the Financial Times owned Banker Magazine, and leading regional investment publication Latinfinance.   

Mr. Collister is the longest serving current member of the Economic Policy Committee of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ); as well as a Director of the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC), and Chairman of its Economic Affairs and Taxation Committee, and was a prime mover in Jamaica’s second and third attempts at creating a social partnership to respond to Jamaica’s 2003/2004 and 2008/2009 economic crises. 

He has represented the private sector on a number of government committees, including, inter alia, the industry advisory council on services, the international financial services centre special advisory committee (both based out of investment promotion agency Jamaica Trade and Invest), the Planning Institute of Jamaica’s Macroeconomic and Governance Working Group for the recently released 2030 vision, and the National Planning Summit Expert Team on Tax Reform/Balancing the Budget/Debt Reduction based out of the Ministry of Finance. The National Planning Summit was a partnership between the private sector and the new Jamaican government which he worked on with former PSOJ President Chris Zacca. The latter committee, chaired by former Minister of Finance Don Wehby, prepared the July 2009 document “A Blueprint for Taxation Reform in Jamaica”, which should form the basis for Jamaica’s planned tax reform. 

Mr. Collister has also organised the JCC’s first National Economic Forum on the Fiscal Debt Challenge and Export Led Growth.

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Sandra Glasgow
Chief Executive Officer, Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica

Mrs. Sandra Glasgow is the Chief Executive Officer of The Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica.  Prior to joining the PSOJ she was the Senior Vice President, Corporate Services at the University of Technology, Jamaica where she led the development of innovative strategies for improving productivity and customer service.   She is the Founder, having conceptualised, raised funds and project-managed the construction of the Technology Innovation Centre, the English-speaking Caribbean’s first technology business incubator which opened its doors in 2002.  She successfully transformed the operations of its precursor, the Entrepreneurial Centre, into a world class business incubator for start-up technology ventures and a provider of training, consulting and business services for entrepreneurial Jamaican firms.   

A graduate of the University of the West Indies, (UWI) Mona campus, she holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Applied Zoology and Applied Botany and a Masters Degree in Business Administration, with a specialisation in the Management of Technology.   

An accomplished trainer, Mrs. Glasgow has facilitated numerous training programmes and workshops in entrepreneurship, business development and strategic planning.  For a number of years she taught the course New Ventures and Entrepreneurship for the MBA programme at the Mona School of Business, University of the West Indies and has also delivered courses on Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Government at the Management Institute for National Development (MIND).   

Mrs. Glasgow was Jamaica’s Eisenhower Fellow in 2000 and received from her alma mater, St. Hugh’s High School, the Distinguished Past Students Award in 2003.   

She is currently a member of the Boards of Directors of the National Commercial Bank Jamaica Limited, the National Export-Import Bank of Jamaica (EX-IM), the GraceKennedy Foundation, the Planning Institute of Jamaica and the Jamaica Productivity Centre.   She has been certified as a Director by the Commonwealth Association for Corporate Governance and is certified by the World Bank/International Finance Corporation as a Trainer in Corporate Governance Board Leadership. 

Mrs. Glasgow was the Founder and Team Leader of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), Jamaica.  GEM is a not-for-profit academic research consortium that has as its goal making high quality international research data on entrepreneurial activity readily available to as wide an audience as possible and is the largest single study of entrepreneurial activity in the world.

Mrs. Glasgow is the author of a number of papers and publications, is an avid gardener, married to Neil and the mother of two daughters.

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Robert Gregory
Former President, Jamaica Trade and Invest; Former Executive Director HEART Trust

With over thirty-five years’ expertise in Institution Building and Leadership, Robert Gregory now offers his services  from a practitioner’s perspective, as consultant, advisor, lecturer, coach, mentor and resource person.

As the President of Jamaica Trade and Invest (JTI), Mr. Gregory provided strategic leadership for a team of more than eighty professionals, facilitating over US$650 million in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).  Investments were primarily in the critical economic sectors of Tourism/Hospitality, and Information and Communication Technology.

Mr. Gregory left his post as the Executive Director of the Human Employment And Resource Training Trust/National Training Agency (HEART Trust/NTA) after almost sixteen years, during which he directed the successful organizational restructuring of the Trust (a national youth vocational training institution with a national enrolment of 8,000 in 1991) to become the National Training Agency of Jamaica, a public sector flagship organization and national entity offering globally benchmarked work-based training, retraining and certification to all working age Jamaicans, with an enrolment of over 95,000 in 2007.  The Trust was awarded the Employer of Choice by the Jamaica Employers Federation (JEF) in 2005. 

Mr. Gregory also established the National Council on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (NCTVET), the ISO certified, quality assurance body which awards the National Vocational Qualification of Jamaica (NVQJ).    He also spearheaded the formation of the Caribbean Association of National Training Agencies (CANTA), and served as Charter President.  CANTA led the Caribbean-wide introduction of the CARICOM approved Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ), which now enables the free movement of certified workers within the Caribbean Community. 

Mr. Gregory is currently Deputy Chair of the National Council on Education (NCE), and Chairman of the Kingston Technical High School Board.  He has also served as Charter President of the Caribbean Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (CAIPA). 

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M. Audrey Hinchcliffe, C.D.
Founder and Principal Consultant of Caribbean Health Management Consultants Ltd., Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Manpower and Maintenance Services Ltd

M. Audrey Hinchcliffe is an entrepreneur and a health management specialist. She presides over a group of companies, for which she is Founder and Principal Consultant of Caribbean Health Management Consultants Ltd., Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Manpower and Maintenance Services Ltd, and its affiliate the Institute for Workforce Education and Development and Manpower & Maintenance Placement Agency.

Mrs. Hinchcliffe is a Director of GraceKennedy Limited, Chairman of Hilo Food Stores, and a member of the Gleaner Annual Business Leader Award Committee. She was the first Chairman of the Board of Medecus Health Insurance Company. Ms. Hinchcliffe was the first female President of Jamaica Employers’ Federation (JEF) and served two terms from July 2004 to July 2008. Up to September 2007, she was the Deputy Chairman of the Tourism Enhancement Fund and Chairman of its Projects Committee. She also served as Chairman of the Nursing Council of Jamaica for 11 years up to March 2005.  

On March 29, 2006 Ms. Hinchcliffe was conferred the honor of the Order of Distinction, in the rank of Commander (CD) in recognition for her Entrepreneurial Enterprise and Leadership in Employer/Employee Relationships. 

The recipient of several commendations and awards, Ms. Hinchcliffe is the Ernst & Young Caribbean Entrepreneur of the Year 2003 - Services. She was nominated for the Business Observer - Business Leader of the Year 2001, and was the recipient of the Kiwanis Club of New Kingston in Celebration of Women - Award of Excellence in 2002. In May 2005, Ms. Hinchcliffe was accorded the Business Leader of The Year Award by Florida International University (Jamaica Program) and in November 2008, she was accorded the Manager of The Year Award by the Jamaican Institute of Management and the Gleaner Company. 

Ms. Hinchcliffe enjoys the distinction of being among the Jamaica Observer’s 50 Most Influential Women (2007), the Daily Gleaner Top 10 Phenomenal Women (2006) and Jamaica Business Magazine 10 Most Influential Business Women (2007). 

She holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Community Health from St. Francis College, Brooklyn, New York, a Master of Science in Health Administration from Long Island University, New York, and a Certificate in Health Economics from the University of York in the United Kingdom.

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Brian Maxwell Jardim
Chief Executive Officer, Rainforest Seafood

Born in England in 1963, Brian spent his childhood between Jamaica and Guyana.  He earned a diploma in Business Administration from Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada; a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and a Masters degree in Financial Accounting from the University of Florida. He practiced with Ernst and Young in Miami for two years and became a Certified Public Accountant in the State of Florida.  He then joined the Sandals and Appliance Traders group of companies in Jamaica where he spent 10 years and eventually became President of Sandals Resorts International.  In 1995 he partnered with Ian Dear and together they own and operate 12 restaurants and bars in Jamaica including the Caribbean franchise of Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville, Marguerites Seafood by the Sea, Groovy Grouper, Blue Beat Jazz Bar and the Jamaica Bobsled Café franchise. 

Brian also owns Rainforest Seafoods, a company he founded in 1995 and which is currently the leading distributor of seafood products in Jamaica and the Caribbean.  Rainforest Seafoods imports seafood products from around the world, and further processes, brands and distributes Caribbean-wide.  Rainforest operates 17 depots and retail outlets in Jamaica with a distribution network that extends to all major supermarkets, hotels, restaurants and wholesalers.

Brian is a member of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and the PSOJ, and is a director of First Global Bank and CGM Gallagher boards.  Married with 3 young sons, Brian enjoys playing dominoes and squash in his free time.

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Jacqueline Leckie Johnson
Group Chief Financial Officer, Lasco Distributors Limited

In this capacity, Mrs. Leckie-Johnson is responsible for the strategic and operations management of the Finance and Accounting functions across the entire group of companies.

Jacqueline has vast knowledge and expertise in the field of Finance and Accounts, Audit and Information Systems, with over 20 years of management experience.  She has played leading executive management roles in major organizations throughout her corporate career including Chief Financial Officer - Hardware and Lumber Limited, Group Chief Internal Auditor - Grace Kennedy Limited, Senior Audit Manager - PricewaterhouseCoopers to name a few.

Jacqueline was educated at The University of the West Indies where she obtained her Bachelor of Science Degree in Accounting (Hons.) and MSc. in MIS (Distinction). She is a fellow member of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants, Certified Internal Auditor and Certified Information Systems Auditor. Currently, Jacqueline is pursuing her Doctorate in Business Administration; and has begun writing her dissertation focusing on Business Turnaround. 

Jacqueline is married to Lincoln and has two (2) children, Jodi-Ann and Jordan. She enjoys listening and dancing to music, reading and is an avid sport fan.

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Oliver Jordan
Managing Director, FirstCaribbean Barbados Strategic Business Unit

Oliver Jordan is the Managing Director for the Barbados Strategic Business Unit which includes the bank’s operations in Barbados, the Eastern Caribbean and Belize. He is also the Country Head and Chairman of the Barbados Country Management Committee. He previously held the position of Director, Corporate Banking for the South Caribbean upon joining FirstCaribbean in August 2004.

Oliver is a Chartered Accountant and former Senior Manager, Financial Services with Deloitte & Touche with extensive banking experience in Canada and the Cayman Islands. He has also served as President & CEO of the Barbados Tourism Authority.

Oliver was born in Barbados and attended Harrison College, graduating as a Barbados Scholar. He later graduated from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Commerce degree and from the Schulich School of Business at York University with an MBA in Banking & Financial Services.

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Christopher Levy
President and CEO, Jamaica Broilers Group

The Board of Directors of Jamaica Broilers Group Ltd. has announced the appointment of Mr. Christopher Levy as Group President and Chief Executive Officer. This sees Christopher Levy assuming overall responsibility for the planning, direction and co-ordination of the Group's resources, in line with the organization's mission, as well as with the strategic objectives and policies identified by the Board of Directors. 

Since joining Jamaica Broilers in 1985 as a Marketing and Sales Trainee, Christopher Levy has worked at varying levels in almost all areas of the operations – managing several of the Group's divisions, leading to his appointment to the position of Vice President for Poultry Operations. 

Christopher Levy played a pivotal role, during the Groups 2006/2007 financial year, on the team that established the organization's ethanol operations and ensured that the construction and commissioning into service of JB Ethanol Ltd. were completed in record time and on budget. In April 2007, Christopher Levy became the Group's Senior Vice President for Operations – the substantive post he held prior to his new appointment as President and CEO. 

Christopher Levy, who is also a Director of the Board of Jamaica Broilers Group Ltd., and a trustee of the JBG Employees' Trust, holds a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration from the University of Miami, as well as an MBA from Regent University in Virginia, USA. He has also successfully completed the Executive Management Programme at Harvard Business School. 

He is currently a Director of the Board of RBTT Securities and the Coffee Industry Board, a member of the Council of the Private Sector Organization of Jamaica (PSOJ) and a Director of the Board of Moorlands Camps Ltd. He has served as a Director of the Board of the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA), the Jamaica Manufacturers Association (JMA) and the Postal Corporation of Jamaica. Additionally, he served his alma mater as First Vice President of the Munro College Old Boys Association.

Christopher Levy is married to Sarah and they have three children – Josephine, Austin and Morgan.

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Dr. Parris Lyew-Ayee
Director, Mona Geoinformatics Institute Department of Geography and Geology, University of the West Indies

Dr. Lyew-Ayee completed his DPhil at the University of Oxford in two and a half years, and began working as Principal Consultant to Mona Informatix Ltd in November 2004, to revitalize operations at that facility. The organization was restructured into an Institute of the UWI Mona campus, and re-branded the Mona GeoInformatics Institute. Dr. Lyew-Ayee was appointed Director, and with a staff of 17 has led the Institute into its third straight year of operational profitability. Dr. Lyew-Ayee was awarded the Prime Minister’s Youth Award for Excellence in Academics in 2004, the Youth Musgrave Award for Science in 2005, and the Governor-General’s Youth Award for Excellence in 2006. He sits on the Board of six private and public sector organizations: NEM Insurance Company, Management Control Systems Ltd, the Jamaica Conservation and Development Trust, the National Works Agency, the National Housing Trust, and serves as the Chairman of the Water Resources Authority. He is also on the National Development Steering Committee of the Planning Institute of Jamaica, and a member of the Violence Prevention Alliance and Crime Observatory. Dr. Lyew-Ayee is currently a joint researcher with the Planetary Sciences Institute (Tucson, Arizona) in examining rock breakdown characteristics of Martian rocks for a NASA project. 

Dr. Lyew-Ayee’s research interests range from geomorphological modeling of karst landscapes (with particular emphasis on topographic signature detection) to modeling crime and sociological patterns, GPS tracking and navigation systems, natural hazards (with emphasis on public sector planning, as well as for private sector interests – for insurance companies and developers), and business planning and management (distribution optimization, site-suitability, market analysis, and customer profiling), all of which involve the use of mapping and geospatial technologies for pattern detection, analysis and recommendations.

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William Mahfood
Managing Director, Wisynco Trading Limited

William Mahfood is the Managing Director of the Wisynco Group.   The company today is one of the leading manufacturers, distributors and retailers of beverages and consumer products in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean.   Along with the current management team, they  turned a primarily manufacturing business into what can only be described as a true consumer conglomerate.  He was instrumental in some of the most important launches of consumer brands in Jamaica in the past 20 years,  including brands such as: Ocean Spray, Wata, Bigga, Yoplait, Haagen Dazs, Coke Zero, and Ocean Spray cranberry flavoured Wata, the single largest selling beverage in Jamaica today. 

He is actively involved in a number of organizations that are focused on assisting in strengthening the wider community, these include; The Shaggy Foundation, Food for the Poor, Violence Prevention Alliance and the Campion College Vision 20/20.

He also serves on a number of boards including Jamaica National Building Society, NCB Insurance Co., UDC subsidiary Caymanas Bay Development Company, and the Sugar Corporation of Jamaica Holdings Co. 

William has a BSC in Industrial Engineering and Information Systems from Northeastern University in Boston, MA.  He can be reached at william@wisynco.com.

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Senator the Honourable Marlene Malahoo Forte
Senator and Minister of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade

Senator the Honourable Marlene Malahoo Forte is an Attorney at Law by profession.  She was appointed Senator and Minister of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade on July 15, 2009. 

Minister Malahoo Forte has had an outstanding career as a judge of the Resident Magistrates’ Courts and has also served as an Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions.  In addition, she was President of the Association of Resident Magistrates as well as President of the Legal Officers’ Staff Association.  She was also a lecturer in Criminal [Law] Practice and Procedure at the Norman Manley Law School on the Mona Campus of the University of the West Indies, Jamaica.  The Minister of State has been named among the top five Jamaican women in the field of law, in the list of Jamaica’s 50 Most Powerful Women, and currently heads the Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI), a committee of United Way of Jamaica. 

In 2007, Mrs. Malahoo Forte was selected as a Yale World Fellow at Yale University.  She is also an Edward S. Mason Fellow of Harvard University Kennedy School of Government, from which she holds the degree of Master in Public Administration (concentration in Political Advocacy and Leadership) plus a Certificate in Public Policy and Management.

A past Head Girl of Manning’s High School, Mrs. Malahoo Forte also obtained further education at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Cave Hill campus, Barbados, where she gained her Bachelor of Laws Degree with Honours.  She is an outstanding graduate of the Norman Manley Law School, Jamaica, where she received the Ken Smith Prize for Trial Advocacy.  A Commonwealth Scholarship awardee to King’s College London, Mrs. Malahoo Forte also obtained the Master of Laws Degree with Merit in Financial Development and Regulatory Laws. 

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Tina Myers-Matalon
Marketing Director, Restaurant of Jamaica Ltd.

Tina Myers-Matalon is Restaurant of Jamaica Ltd’s Marketing Director – having joined the company’s team formally in 2003.  Formally trained in the USA, she first secured a degree in International Business, before going on to actually specialize in marketing through participation in the hotel sales and marketing program at Cornell University. She then worked for several years in Florida with a resort marketing group handling marketing for hotel chains and tourism in the Bahamas, before returning home to take on marketing duties at Restaurants of Jamaica Ltd.  In addition to designing and implementing strategies which help ensure that the Group’s brands and products remain Jamaica’s preferred choices, Tina Myers-Matalon plays a major role in determining the marketing efforts of both YUM! Restaurants brands, KFC & Pizza Hut, regionally.  Proud to be maintaining the brands leadership positions in the Caribbean and Latin American region for marketing proven by the continuous achievement of YUM! Restaurant’s global marketing awards. Aside from her dedication to marketing in the QSR industry for one of Jamaica’s leading, long standing brands, KFC, she has recently branched off to explore the building of a new brand and her entrepreneurial side in becoming the co-director in a nightlife venture that is experiencing tremendous successes in only one year of business.

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Mariame McIntosh
Senior Vice President, Portland Private Equity

As a Senior Vice President of Portland Private Equity, Mariame is part of the investment team and is focused on deal origination, diligence, structuring, documentation, and monitoring.  She has spent over eight years as a strategy consultant with Bain & Company and McKinsey & Company advising senior executives on growth strategy in the telecom, healthcare and consumer products industries.   She attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and is an alumnus of both M.I.T. and Harvard Business School.  While at H.B.S., Mariame co-founded "Nation Building," an organization that brings African-American graduate students together.

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Oliver McIntosh
President / CEO of SportsMax Limited

Mr. Oliver McIntosh is President / CEO of SportsMax Limited and has been with the Company since its inception in 2003. SportsMax is currently broadcast to 24 countries in the Caribbean and is responsible for the broadcast distribution of major sports events such as The 2010/2014 FIFA World Cup, The 2012 Summer Olympics, West Indies cricket and The Barclays Premier League.

Mr. McIntosh worked for more than 10 years in investment banking and business development. Prior to joining SportsMax, he served as a Vice President at Merrill Lynch International in London, with responsibility for clients in the Diversified Industrials Group, which included media & entertainment companies. Prior to joining Merrill Lynch International, he worked for the CFO of The Home Depot as a Business Development and Mergers & Acquisitions officer and as a financial analyst for Salomon Brothers Inc. He is also a former Director of the National Water Commission in Jamaica. 

He holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School (’98) and a BBA in Actuarial Science from Howard University (’93).

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Hon. Mia Mottley, QC, MP
Political Leader of the Barbados Labour Party

Mia Amor Mottley is the Leader of the Barbados Labour Party and the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament.  She was first elected to Parliament in September 1994.

One of the youngest persons ever to be assigned a ministerial portfolio at age 29, she was appointed to the Ministry of Education, Youth Affairs and Culture. During her tenure she co-authored an acclaimed White Paper on Education that draws the link between better education and job fulfillment. In 1996 and again in 1997 she served as Chairman of the Caricom Standing Committee of Ministers of Education.

She is also credited with being the visionary behind the Education Sector Enhancement Programme, popularly know as Edutech, which aims to increase the number of young people contributing to the island’s sustainable social and economic development. This revolutionary program involves the widespread use of information and communication technologies to assist in improving the quality of the teaching/learning process.

Mia was appointed Attorney General and Minister of Home Affairs in 2001 and is the first female to hold this position.

Educated at Merrivale Private School, The United Nations International School, and Queens College, she subsequently obtained a law degree from the London School of Economics. She is a lawyer by profession having been called to the Bar of England and Wales and in Barbados.

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Leroy Paul
Vice President Finance and Treasury at Intertrade Finance Corporation Limited (IFCL)

At IFCL, Leroy directs and controls financial and treasury activities as well as plans and implements strategies for mobilizing the institution’s financial functions. He is a Chartered Accountant and graduate of The University of East London and The Mona School of Business, University of the West Indies. His international working experience includes employment in Banking and Accounting with Baybank Credit Corporation, Boston, Massachusetts and Eastern Electricity, PLC, London respectively. While in London he also worked as an Investment Analyst with Goldman Sachs International.

Leroy is currently pursuing a doctorate in business administration in which he is exploring the contribution of micro, small and medium enterprises to economic development in developing countries.

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Ravi Rambarran
President and Chief Executive Officer, Sagicor International

Mr. Ravi Rambarran's work experience includes Pensions Actuary of Sagicor Life Jamaica, Appointed Actuary of Global Life Bahamas and Global Life Cayman, Chief Financial & Investment Officer of Sagicor Life Jamaica, Managing Director of NCB Capital Markets and West Indian Trust Company, part-time Lecturer in Actuarial Science at the University of the West Indies and running his own actuarial practice.  Prior to joining Sagicor Life Jamaica, Mr. Rambarran was a Consulting Actuary with the Aon Group and the HSBC Group in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Rambaran has a BSc (Hons) in Actuarial Science from City University, London, and an MSc in Financial Economics from the University of London.  Mr. Rambarran was awarded an Open Mathematics Scholarship by the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, and is also a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries.

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Nicholas A. Scott
Managing Director of Corporate Finance, Stocks and Securities Limited (SSL)

Nicholas A. Scott is the Managing Director of Corporate Finance at Stocks and Securities Limited (SSL). SSL is a privately-owned asset manager and securities dealer located in Kingston, Jamaica. SSL is a founding member of the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) and is the second oldest stock brokerage house in Jamaica, established in1977 under the name Paul Chen-Young and Co. Ltd.

Prior to joining SSL, Mr. Scott was an investment banker at the Blackstone Group in New York. While at Blackstone he specialized in restructuring and reorganization transactions.  Prior to the Blackstone Group, Mr. Scott was an investment banker at Morgan Stanley in New York and Sao Paulo specializing in Latin American and Caribbean transactions. While at Morgan Stanley, Mr. Scott executed a variety of mergers, acquisitions and debt and equity financings. His clients included firms in the agricultural, energy, metals and mining and telecom industries as well as sovereign governments throughout the Latin American and Caribbean region.

Mr. Scott holds a B.Sc in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania (Magna Cum Laude), an MBA from Columbia Business School (Beta Gamma Sigma) and an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Mr. Scott is a Director of SSL, Chairman of the Island Ice and Beverage Company (previously Happy Ice and Kingston Ice) and serves on the Board of Directors of the HEART Trust/NTA. Mr. Scott is also a Vice-President of the Private Sector Organization of Jamaica and Chair of its Economic Policy Committee.

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Kim-Marie Spence
Co-founder of the Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CaPRI)

Kim-Marie Spence is one of the co-founders of the Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CaPRI) and was the Communications/Business Development Consultant, responsible for the regional branding and communications. She is committed to Jamaica's development through better policymaking and a greater attention to the needs of the less fortunate in the society.  She is presently focused on her quest to become the first Jamaican woman to ski to the South Pole and her consultancy projects – business strategy; and social development. Kim-Marie was previously the Social Development Manager of the Inner City Housing Project, the premier national urban development project of the National Housing Trust. She has also worked with Edward Seaga as his researcher on Jamaican culture. Kim-Marie has also worked in Paris with UNESCO.

As a Rhodes Scholar, she is a graduate of Oxford University, where she specialized in Development Studies (particularly the anthropology component). She has lived in a number of different locales - India, Japan and Israel – and worked as a consultant on the Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Heritage program in Jamaica for UNESCO. Her other activities include being co-host and club member of the Breakfast Club; and on the executive of the Jamdammers Running Club. She is part of the team planning Jamaica’s only marathon, the Reggae Marathon. She is also a member of the board of the National Land Agency and the development councils of two inner-city development communities. She is also the Prime Minister’s nominated member of the National Commission on Reparations.

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Dr. Adrian Stokes
Senior Investment Manager, Jamaica Money Market Brokers

Dr. Adrian Stokes is the Senior Investment Manager at Jamaica Money Market Brokers. His responsibilities include structuring products for clients and managing the company’s structured note portfolio. He also provides management oversight for JMMB’s long term foreign exchange and emerging market bond portfolios. Dr. Stokes has extensive experience in portfolio analytics, derivative trading and econometric modeling.

Dr. Stokes has lectured several courses at the University of the West Indies including Statistics, Microeconomics, Game Theory and Finance and has also taught at the Manchester Business School in the U.K. His academic interests span developments in the international financial architecture. He has conducted studies on the causes of financial crises in emerging market economies and has conducted theoretical and empirical analyses on the relationship between changing investor risk tolerance and asset prices.

Dr. Stokes has held positions with the National Commercial Bank and served as a consultant with the Private Sector Organization of Jamaica. He began his investment career as an intern at Guardian Life.

Dr. Stokes earned a PhD in Financial Economics from the Manchester Business School and a master’s and bachelor’s degrees in Economics from the University of the West Indies.

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Steven Whittingham
CEO, Island Ice & Beverage Company Ltd

Steven began his career at BlackRock Financial Management in New York, one of the largest publicly traded investment management firms in the world. He specialized in fixed income finance focusing on U.S tax-exempt clients and capital raising. Steven also worked for Morgan Stanley in London in their Mergers and Acquisitions Investment Banking Group.

Steven has since returned to Jamaica and in 2008 oversaw the leveraged buyout of the Jamaican Packaged Ice Industry. Steven is the Chief Executive Officer of the resulting operating vehicle, Island Ice & Beverage Company Limited. In addition, Steven oversees the Financial Advisory Services group at Mayberry Investments Limited focused on providing various corporate finance services to Caribbean companies.

Steven attended the University of Pennsylvania where he completed a dual degree program, earning a Bachelor of Science in Engineering in Systems Engineering from the School of Engineering and Applied Science and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the College of Arts and Sciences. Steven received his MBA from the Harvard Business School in 2008 where he was awarded the Morgan Stanley Fellowship for his achievements.

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Christopher C. Williams
President & CEO Elect (Effective Feb 1, 2010), PROVEN Management Limited

As of February 1, 2010, Christopher Williams will be President and CEO of PROVEN Management Limited.  He resigned from NCB Capital Markets in December 2009. 

Christopher Williams joined NCB Capital Markets in January 2004 as Deputy Managing Director, after acquiring over ten years experience in banking & investments from senior management positions held in Dehring Bunting & Golding Ltd., Knutsford Capital Merchant Bank and Manufacturers Merchant Bank. He served as Consulting Analyst at KMPG Peat Marwick for two years before pursuing his career in the financial sector. 

In September 2004, he was appointed Managing Director of NCB Capital Markets Limited. Mr. Williams holds a BSc. in Accounting from the University of the West Indies and an MBA in Strategic Marketing and Finance from the York University in Canada. Mr. Williams is the deputy chairman of the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE).

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Densil A. Williams
Lecturer of International Business in the Department of Management Studies at UWI

Densil A. Williams is a lecturer of International Business in the Department of Management Studies at UWI, Mona in Jamaica. His research interests include strategy of firms, economic development and international business. He has served as consultant on a number of projects dealing with the competitiveness of firms in small economies. His current research is also focused on the international activities of the small firm. Densil’s works appear in major journals in Europe and North-America. He has also presented his works at major international conferences in Europe and North-America and Asia. His most recent book is entitled “Understanding  Exporting in the Small and Micro Enterprise”, Published by Nova Science Publishers.

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Honorable Bruce Golding
Prime Minister of Jamaica

Honorable Oliver Clarke
Chairman and Managing Director of The Gleaner

Colm Delves
CEO, Digicel Group

Joseph Matalon
President, Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica

Clovis Metcalfe
Managing Director, First Caribbean

 
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Harvard Caribbean Busines Club
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