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Meet our New President 
& Board of Directors (2023-2025)

LINKAGE Q2 (2023) - CATAPULT

T he American Chamber of Commerce of Trinidad and Tobago (AMCHAM T&T) recently held its 30th Annual General Meeting (AGM) and Business Forum on June 16, 2023, where Stuart Franco, Chief Executive Officer at Trinidad Systems Limited (The TSL Group), was appointed the new President.

As the 17th President in the organisation’s thirty-one-year history, Franco replaced outgoing President, Caroline Toni Sirju-Ramnarine, who served a two-year term from 2021 to 2023.

Franco who began his career at TSL in 2003 as a Sales Representative, became the youngest member of TSL’s Board of Directors, having been appointed Executive Vice President in 2011. During his tenure at TSL, he achieved an impressive track record of high-quality salesmanship, showed tremendous care for his clients, and brought significant success to TSL despite the challenging environment of the last few years.

In his inaugural speech, Franco expressed his deepest appreciation for the trust placed in him by the organisation’s approximately three hundred member companies. “Your confidence in my ability is not taken lightly, and I am committed to leading this Chamber with integrity, transparency, and a relentless drive for progress which has been embedded in me during my twenty years at Trinidad Systems Limited.”

Franco says his plans will include building bridges and finding solutions to support business growth that will unleash the full, dynamic potential of the country. “I make no apologies for saying that business has a huge role to play in realising that dynamism,” Franco said.

“We must find more effective mechanisms for public-private partnerships. We must take a closer look at the areas where business can support the government’s objectives and the desires of our people for better service delivery of public goods to see where collaboration can lead to improved results.”

In this regard, the newly appointed President spoke on the issues of crime, customs reform, and developing the tech sector where he believes increased collaboration can yield significant success.

Franco said AMCHAM T&T as a part of the Joint Chambers, which also include the Energy Chamber, the TTCIC, and the TTMA, put out a statement in late December stating that addressing rising, violent crime has to be the number one priority of the government. “In that statement and in every subsequent communication, publicly and privately, we have offered our support and indicated our willingness to collaborate with the police service and the government more broadly in the context of a clearly articulated plan.”

“As an organisation, we are reiterating the need for clear, targeted, coordinated, and collaborative actions to urgently address and reduce crime,” Franco said. “I believe we can all agree that crime is badly affecting confidence in our economy and discouraging a significant portion of potential investment.

“As we seek to enhance the culture of collaboration, we do not want to put out a list of things that we believe need to be done. Instead, we would like to work with the government and the TTPS to develop a mechanism of continuous engagement to support the very clear and specific goal of reducing crime and then work on all the inputs and measures – the immediate actions and the longer-term solutions – that will allow us to achieve this common objective.”

Franco says AMCHAM T&T is looking forward to discussing this further with the Honourable Prime Minister and members of the Cabinet and the Commissioner of Police and her Senior Leadership.

On the issue of customs reform, Franco cites the difficulties in conducting trade due to the long wait times for clearance and associated inflated costs that are negatively impacting business confidence. “Challenges at the borders are making it much more difficult and costly to do business. While delays and increased costs are affecting businesses of every size, small businesses that can’t afford large inventories, are being hit the hardest.”

The AMCHAM President says he is heartened by a recent meeting with the Minister of Finance on this issue and looks forward to working with the government, customs, and the organisation’s members to find urgent, sustainable solutions to conduct trade more efficiently while simultaneously protecting the nation’s borders.

Franco also said AMCHAM T&T would be doubling down on its efforts to develop the tech sector in Trinidad and Tobago. “It is critical that we map out the plans to establish policies that strengthen ICT skills development and education so that we can create the critical mass of people with required tech-related skills to sustain the digital economy we are building,” Franco said.

“Over the next year, we intend to roll out some skills-development programmes as we seek to do our part to address this issue and hope to be able to make a major announcement in this regard at the 5th Annual Tech Hub Islands Summit in a couple of weeks.”

He applauded the work of the TTIFC to develop the FinTech sector with which AMCHAM will seek further collaboration based on a framework outlined in a recently executed MoU signed between both organisations.

He also expressed his content with some of the initiatives outlined by the Ministry of Digital Transformation especially the consultation offered to AMCHAM T&T for members to have a stronger voice on the country’s digital strategy.

Franco is the second senior executive from the TSL Group to be appointed President of AMCHAM T&T, following Nicholas Galt (Chairman of the Board at TSL), who served in the position from 2004 to 2006 and was later appointed as Chairman of the Association of American Chambers of Commerce of Latin America (AACCLA) in 2013.

At the 30th Annual General Meeting (AGM), AMCHAM T&T elected the following Board of Directors for the term 2023–2025.

 

PRESIDENT
Stuart Franco – Chief Executive Officer (The TSL Group)
VICE PRESIDENT 
Anna Henderson – Chief Executive Officer (Amaranth Business Solutions Limited)
VICE PRESIDENT 
Angélique Parisot-Potter – Executive VP and General Counsel (MASSY)
SECRETARY 
Stéphane Picarle – General Manager Commercial (Shell Trinidad and Tobago Limited)
TREASURER 
Tricia De La Rosa – VP, AML/ATF and Compliance (Scotiabank Trinidad & Tobago Limited)

Gregory Hill – Managing Director (ANSA Merchant Bank Limited)

Caroline Toni Sirju-Ramnarine – Vice President, Corporate Operations and Transformation (Atlantic LNG)

Giselle Thompson – VP Corporate Operations (BP Trinidad and Tobago)

Mitchell De Silva – Citi Country Officer – T&T Hub (Citibank (Trinidad & Tobago) Limited) 

Andrea Davis – Country Manager (DHL Express Trinidad and Tobago Ltd.)

Patricia Ghany – Chief Financial Officer (Esau Oilfield Supplies Co. Ltd.)

Glenn Hamel-Smith – Partner & Head - Banking & Finance (M. Hamel-Smith & Co.)

Simon Aqui – Country Leader (IBM Trinidad and Tobago)

Greer Quan – Chief Executive Officer – Caribbean (Pan-American Life Insurance Group)

Dominic Rampersad – President (Phoenix Park Gas Processors Limited)

Krishen Ramdeen – Managing Director of Corporate and Shared Services (Proman Trinidad and Tobago)

Ex-Officio Positions
Her Excellency Ms Candace A. Bond – U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago (U.S. Embassy Trinidad & Tobago)

Nirad Tewarie – Chief Executive Officer (AMCHAM T&T)

AMCHAM T&T’s 30th Annual General Meeting was sponsored by Platinum Sponsors: eZone Logistics; Export - Import Bank of Trinidad & Tobago Ltd. and Silver Sponsors: Atlantic LNG; and EOG Resources Trinidad Ltd.