This week it was announced that Professor Ian Boxhill will assume the Grace Kennedy Foundation’s Carlton Alexander Chair in Management Studies at the University of the West Indies. This reminded me of a conversation that I recently had with friends who had attended The Lodge School with me many decades ago discussing the changing business culture and the single minded pursuit of enrichment that seemingly excluded all other considerations. “Where were the giants of the business community in our time of crisis”? we asked ourselves, and “where was the vision that would lead us forward in the storm tossed economic environment”?
We spoke of Carlton Alexander of Jamaica; Sydney Knox and Ken Gordon of Trinidad & Tobago and Victor Goddard of Barbados to mention a few, and wondered who it was today that had the business acumen, patriotism, high ethical standards and knowledge of the people of the region that these men exhibited in previous times of crisis.
It was my great privilege to have known and worked with Mr. Alexander in the early 1980’s in a joint venture between Grace Kennedy, Goddards and Marriott. Carlton was above all a patriot and had an abiding love for the people of Jamaica. In a decade of ruinous policies that savaged the Jamaican economy and impoverished the population, Carlton stood firm guiding his company through the dangerous shoals of economic and political perils. At a time when ten thousand managers and their families abandoned all hope and left their native shores for Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, Carlton stood firm and was a steadying hand for both Grace Kennedy and the bruised and battered business community.
He believed in his fellow countrymen and fought to introduce a sense of economic reality at a time when Manley’s socialist dreams, increased statist policies and romantic international adventurism wrought havoc in Jamaica and brought poverty to all.
Carlton’s philosophy was mirrored across the Caribbean by his peers who saw the Caribbean as one market, understood the consumer and believed in giving value for money. They appreciated hard work and never asked anyone to do anything they would not do themselves. They believed in high ethical standards and greatly appreciated the loyalty of their employees and customers; something that they instinctively knew had to be earned rather than demanded. They all felt a need to give back to the community where they did business and did so in many ways that did not garner flashy news headlines and staged photographs. But the people knew and appreciated their involvement in their communities.
Major business decisions were never taken without consideration of the national interest and how it affected the country. These men may not have worn patriotism on their sleeves but it was always close to their hearts. They came together when private business was under threat in the last half of the previous century through global financial crisis and ruinous political experimentation. They provided leadership to the wider business community and contributed to economic growth and expansion as they participated in something that was bigger than themselves or their companies, the Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce.
Today we face even greater challenges and we asked “where are the business patriots of today?” are they forging solutions to our common regional problems or at we at sea in rafts of individuality each seeking his own path out of the morass in search of personal gain?
Today there are myriad problems facing our societies that should involve business leaders across the region. It is time for a reinvigorated CAIC to bring together our most prominent business leaders to address regional problems and to exert a measure of business leadership that seems to be absent from our landscape. Or have we lost a sense of common purpose?
phillip.goddard@braggadax.com
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