I founded my Family Business Consulting practice in 2004 after working for 18 years as a senior executive family member in a family business. I lived firsthand the issues and challenges of family businesses and set about learning and implementing strategies and structures to ensure that the business competes successfully, while maintaining appropriate family involvement.
The following academic and professional qualifications and awards augment my practical experience.
- MBA: This formal business education gave me tools to help professionalize a second-generation business that had outgrown founders’ functioning.
- Advanced Certificate in Family Business Advising (ACFBA): Professional designation from the Family Firm Institute provides me with the latest thinking and research about Family Business management. I am proud to have been the first person in the Caribbean to achieve that status.
- Fellow of the Family Firm Institute: A select (just over 200) worldwide group of “individuals who demonstrate ongoing expertise and commitment to the field of family enterprise.” This recognition has served to connect me with leaders in the field of Family Enterprise Research and Practice.
- Doctorate in Organization Development (Ed. D) from the George Washington University: This advanced degree with a focus on the practitioner-scholar served to hone my academic and research skills. My doctoral dissertation on co-CEOs in Family Business was awarded the international Best Dissertation Award 2012 from the Family Firm Institute.
- Research prize: 2015 Family Enterprise Research Prize for 2015 for presentation on ongoing research on co-CEOs funded by research award from the Family Owned Business Institute.
- Certificate in Coaching: obtained after a nine-month program from Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC),2016. I am committed to continuing education and this additional qualification has created another avenue for me to support my clients.
I have designed and conducted workshops and presentations on various topics in Family Business at conferences and forums within the United States of America as well as throughout the Caribbean I have also conducted workshops on Creating the Work You Love, Difficult Conversations, Art of Listening and Emotional Intelligence for family and non-family businesses as well as the nonprofit Foundation for Human Development. I have conducted private consultations with scores of clients in 6 different countries and have written over 24 months’ worth of monthly columns for the Trinidad and Tobago Business Guardian.