Camille Wardrop Al­leyne

Aero­space En­gi­neer­ing

Camille Wardrop Al­leyne is an ac­com­plished aero­space en­gi­neer in a field where women are in the mi­nor­i­ty. She is one of a few women of colour and the on­ly woman of Caribbean de­scent (born in T&T) in a se­nior man­age­ment po­si­tion at the Na­tion­al Aero­nau­tics and Space Ad­min­is­tra­tion (NASA).

At NASA, she has worked on the Con­stel­la­tion and Ori­on pro­grammes as a lead sys­tem en­gi­neer, crew mod­ule sys­tems en­gi­neer, and test man­ag­er, re­spec­tive­ly. She worked with a team of en­gi­neers on the de­sign and de­vel­op­ment of the Ori­on crew ex­plo­ration ve­hi­cles re­spon­si­ble for trans­port­ing as­tro­nauts to des­ti­na­tions be­yond Low Earth Or­bit such as the moon, as­ter­oids and, po­ten­tial­ly, Mars.

Al­leyne has re­ceived sev­er­al awards from NASA. She has al­so re­ceived com­men­da­tions from the US De­part­ment of De­fense for her work on its bal­lis­tic mis­sile de­fence sys­tem and oth­er awards and ac­co­lades in­clud­ing Out­stand­ing Woman in Aero­space by the Na­tion­al So­ci­ety of Black En­gi­neers and Dis­tin­guished Alum­ni award from FA­MU/FSU Col­lege of En­gi­neer­ing. She is an As­so­ciate pro­gramme sci­en­tist for the In­ter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion, based in Hous­ton, Texas. Her roles in­clude com­mu­ni­cat­ing the In­ter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion’s sci­en­tif­ic ac­com­plish­ments with the lead­ers at NASA, the US Con­gress, and sci­en­tif­ic and ed­u­ca­tion­al com­mu­ni­ties.

Aneesa Ahamad

Med­i­cine

Dr Aneesa Ahamad is T&T’s first fe­male on­col­o­gist. She is a found­ing mem­ber of the Physi­cian’s Ad­vi­so­ry Can­cer Team (PACT), a free ser­vice where can­cer pa­tients can get their cas­es re­viewed for treat­ment rec­om­men­da­tions. She al­so served as a con­sul­tant to the T&T Gov­ern­ment on the es­tab­lish­ment of a na­tion­al on­col­o­gy pro­gramme and the Na­tion­al On­col­o­gy Cen­tre.

She is a for­mer med­ical chief of staff at the Bri­an Lara Can­cer Treat­ment Cen­tre and a se­nior lec­tur­er in Haema­tol­ogy at the Fac­ul­ty of Med­ical Sci­ences, The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), St Au­gus­tine. Dr Ahamad, from Cou­va, has re­ceived nu­mer­ous awards and recog­ni­tions for her dis­tinc­tion in sci­en­tif­ic and clin­i­cal work. Most no­tably, she won the Frank Doyle Medal (1998) and the Ro­han Williams Medal (2000) from The Roy­al Col­lege of Ra­di­ol­o­gists of Lon­don.

She serves on com­mit­tees of the Amer­i­can So­ci­ety for Ther­a­peu­tic Ra­di­ol­o­gy and On­col­o­gy, The Na­tion­al Ra­dio­ther­a­py Group On­col­o­gy, and is a vol­un­teer for the Amer­i­can So­ci­ety of Clin­i­cal On­col­o­gy. She is a strong ad­vo­cate for pa­tients and col­leagues.

Lisa Ra­mansar

De­sign­er/make-up artist

Lisa Ra­mansar is a deaf mod­el, de­sign­er, and make-up artist. Her cloth­ing brand is called L’Wink De­signz. She won a com­mer­cial mod­el ti­tle and is an ad­vo­cate for dis­abled peo­ple. Ra­mansar was born and raised in Rio Claro and is the on­ly deaf child among four sib­lings. De­spite this, she is de­ter­mined to live a ful­fill­ing life. One of her pas­sions is sewing, and she en­joys cre­at­ing beau­ti­ful dress­es, hand­bags, satin robes, hats, and many oth­er items for fun. She al­ways had a love for the fash­ion in­dus­try and a fas­ci­na­tion for pageants and mod­el­ling.

She is cur­rent­ly work­ing on build­ing her port­fo­lio and hon­ing her skills as a mod­el, make-up artist and fash­ion de­sign­er. Ra­mansar is al­so im­prov­ing her sign lan­guage skills to com­mu­ni­cate with my team and oth­ers in the in­dus­try. Ra­mansar be­lieves it is im­por­tant for the deaf com­mu­ni­ty and peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties to see oth­ers like them suc­ceed in the in­dus­try, chase their dreams and not let their lim­i­ta­tions hold them back.

Gol­da Lee Bruce

Me­dia/com­mu­ni­ca­tions

Gol­da Lee Bruce is a se­nior com­mu­ni­ca­tions of­fi­cer at the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund in Wash­ing­ton, DC and was for­mer­ly a De­vel­op­ment Sto­ry­teller and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Co­or­di­na­tor in the Caribbean Coun­try De­part­ment of the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB). She is re­spon­si­ble for craft­ing mes­sages about Caribbean peo­ple to in­spire im­prove­ments in their lives.

A com­mu­ni­ca­tor with a pas­sion for telling sto­ries, she us­es her voice to in­form and in­spire the world. Bruce worked for many years as a jour­nal­ist and news an­chor in T&T. She was the Deputy Head of News at Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed, where she led the merg­er of its print and broad­cast news­rooms in­to a sin­gle dig­i­tal-led op­er­a­tion.

Bruce holds a mas­ter’s de­gree in Jour­nal­ism from Co­lum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty and a bach­e­lor’s in Me­dia and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion from The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Mona. She cur­rent­ly lives in Mary­land with her hus­band, son, and daugh­ter.

Ani­ta Ga­jad­har

Oil and gas sec­tor

Ani­ta Ga­jad­har, an en­gi­neer in oil and gas, is the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Pro­man Ship­ping AG, the petro­chem­i­cal com­pa­ny head­quar­tered in Switzer­land that is a world play­er in the methanol mar­ket.

As MD, Ga­jad­har de­vel­ops and im­ple­ments the com­pa­ny’s glob­al ship­ping strat­e­gy and over­sees its op­er­a­tions. Ga­jad­har’s ca­reer with the Pro­man Group spans 18 years.

She start­ed off her ca­reer with Pro­man in 2005 as a busi­ness an­a­lyst and was giv­en the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the mar­ket­ing and lo­gis­tics of the AUM (am­mo­nia, urea am­mo­ni­um ni­trate (UAN) and melamine) com­plex at the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate in 2008. In 2010, she be­came head of mar­ket­ing and lo­gis­tics for methanol from Point Lisas. By 2014, she took over as com­mer­cial man­ag­er of AUM and methanol, with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for mar­ket­ing and lo­gis­tics. Her fo­cus and work eth­ic steered her well, and in April 2018, she moved to Switzer­land to start up Pro­man Ship­ping.

Ed­u­cat­ed at St Au­gus­tine Girls’ High School and The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies in St Au­gus­tine, she re­ceived a de­gree in man­age­ment and fi­nance and an MBA from Heri­ot-Watt Uni­ver­si­ty.

Te­niel Camp­bell

Sports

Te­niel Camp­bell is a 25-year-old cy­clist from T&T, cur­rent­ly rid­ing for UCI Women’s World Team Jay­co–AlU­la. She was crowned the 2022 T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) Sports­man of the Year and the First Cit­i­zen Sports Foun­da­tion Sports­woman of the Year.

She al­so emerged as the dou­ble gold medal­list at the T&T’s Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion Na­tion­al Cham­pi­onships, in the Road Race and Time Tri­al events, and copped gold in the Time Tri­al at the Elite Caribbean Road Cham­pi­onships in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

A mem­ber of Team­Bi­ke­Ex­change-Jay­co, Camp­bell placed 10th in the tenth and fi­nal stage of the 2022 Giro d’Italia Donne, the most pres­ti­gious road race in women’s cy­cling for the 83rd spot over­all.

From Hard­bar­gain Vil­lage, Williamsville, Camp­bell se­cured her sec­ond top TTOC award in 2022 af­ter her first tri­umph in 2020.

In 2018, she won four medals at the 2018 Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean Games.

The next year, she won the U23 in­di­vid­ual time tri­al at the Pan Amer­i­can Road and Track Cham­pi­onships. She al­so won both stages, the gen­er­al clas­si­fi­ca­tion, the points clas­si­fi­ca­tion and the youth clas­si­fi­ca­tion in the Kreiz Breizh Elites Dames.

Tri­cia Coos­al

Man­u­fac­tur­ing

Tri­cia Coos­al served for two years (from 2021-2023) as the 65th pres­i­dent of the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion. She was the youngest per­son to do so and one of three women to serve as pres­i­dent. The ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of Fi­nance and Ad­min­is­tra­tion at the Coos­al’s Group of Com­pa­nies, Coos­al al­so served as vice pres­i­dent of the TTMA and a di­rec­tor with the as­so­ci­a­tion for sev­er­al years.

She holds a Bach­e­lor of Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion with a mi­nor in Eng­lish and a Mas­ter’s in Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Karen Dar­basie

Fi­nance/bank­ing

Karen Dar­basie is a banker and busi­ness­woman. She is the Group Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of First Cit­i­zens, hav­ing as­sumed the role in April 2015. As Group CEO, she is fo­cused on cre­at­ing, plan­ning, im­ple­ment­ing and in­te­grat­ing the strate­gic di­rec­tion of the group. An ac­com­plished se­nior ex­ec­u­tive with over three decades of ex­pe­ri­ence in the fi­nan­cial ser­vices and telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions in­dus­tries, she has a pro­gres­sive lead­er­ship style un­der­scored by ex­cel­lence and vi­sion.

Dar­basie held sev­er­al se­nior po­si­tions at a glob­al fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion based in T&T, in­clud­ing man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of the Mer­chant Bank, Coun­try Trea­sur­er and Mar­kets Head.

Her ex­ten­sive aca­d­e­m­ic back­ground cou­pled with her vast lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al qual­i­fi­ca­tions, which in­clude a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence (BSc) de­gree in Elec­tri­cal En­gi­neer­ing with First Class Ho­n­ours from The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, a Mas­ter of Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion (MBA) with dis­tinc­tion from the Uni­ver­si­ty of War­wick and a Mas­ter of Sci­ence (MSc) with dis­tinc­tion from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Es­sex is bol­stered by an in­nate tech­ni­cal busi­ness acu­men.

She al­so served as a for­mer di­rec­tor of the Board of the Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce of T&T and St Lu­cia Elec­tric­i­ty Ser­vices Lim­it­ed. Dar­basie cur­rent­ly serves as chair­man of Trinidad Ni­tro­gen Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed, Di­rec­tor of the Bankers As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T and a mem­ber of the Board of Di­rec­tors of Unit­ed Way T&T.

Renée Cum­mings

STEM/Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence

Renée Cum­mings is a crim­i­nol­o­gist, crim­i­nal psy­chol­o­gist, in­ter­na­tion­al crim­i­nal jus­tice con­sul­tant, and Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence (AI), da­ta and tech ethi­cist.

Cum­mings, who al­so spe­cialis­es in cri­sis in­tel­li­gence, cri­sis com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and me­dia, is al­so a cre­ative sci­ence com­mu­ni­ca­tor and the first da­ta ac­tivist-in-res­i­dence at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia’s (UVA) School of Da­ta Sci­ence where she was named pro­fes­sor of Prac­tice in Da­ta Sci­ence.

In her work as a crim­i­nol­o­gist, Cum­mings found­ed Crim­i­nal Jus­tice In­tel­li­gence Inc, which works with gov­ern­ments in the Caribbean to strength­en crime pre­ven­tion, in­cor­po­rate new tech­nolo­gies in ex­ist­ing crime pre­ven­tion strate­gies, and de­vel­op be­hav­iour and hard­ware strate­gies that in­ter­link to re­duce vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties and tai­lor more proac­tive ap­proach­es to crime con­trol and crime re­duc­tion. She al­so found­ed Ur­ban AI and is an East Coast Re­gion­al Leader for Women in AI Ethics.

While in New York City, Cum­mings used her ex­per­tise to train po­lice of­fi­cers and law en­force­ment agents to de­crease homi­cides and gun and gang vi­o­lence. She is a sought-af­ter thought leader and men­tor.

Prof Rose-Marie Belle An­toine

Ed­u­ca­tion

Prof Rose-Marie Belle An­toine is an aca­d­e­m­ic, at­tor­ney and au­thor. She is cur­rent­ly the prin­ci­pal of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus.

UWI alum­na, a Cam­bridge Pe­ga­sus Fel­low, and an Ox­ford and Com­mon­wealth Schol­ar, Prof An­toine holds a doc­tor­ate from Ox­ford Uni­ver­si­ty in Off­shore Fi­nan­cial Law and has served as lead con­sul­tant to all the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty gov­ern­ments, Cana­da, UK, USA, and nu­mer­ous in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions, on a wide range of di­verse is­sues.

Prof An­toine es­tab­lished the In­ter­na­tion­al Hu­man Rights Clin­ic, an in­no­v­a­tive le­gal ed­u­ca­tion mod­el twin­ning acad­e­mia with ac­tivism and prac­ti­tion­ers. As a cham­pi­on of health, dis­crim­i­na­tion, and gen­der is­sues, she is pres­i­dent of the 66-year-old Fam­i­ly Plan­ning As­so­ci­a­tion, the old­est NGO in T&T, and is part of the Board of Trustees of the In­ter­na­tion­al Planned Par­ent­hood Fed­er­a­tion, Lon­don. She is al­so a mem­ber of T&T’s In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee, a trained clas­si­cal singer, an am­a­teur painter and a gar­den­er.

Mar­la Dukha­ran

Eco­nom­ics

Mar­la Dukha­ran is recog­nised as a top econ­o­mist and ad­vis­er on re­gion­al de­vel­op­ments and coun­try-lev­el eco­nom­ic per­for­mance, known for lead­ing dis­cus­sions and pub­lish­ing re­ports on the Caribbean im­pli­ca­tions of glob­al geopo­lit­i­cal de­vel­op­ments.

Dukha­ran, well-known for her month­ly Caribbean Eco­nom­ic Re­port, mon­i­tor­ing ma­jor eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ments in over 20 coun­tries, has be­come a key in­flu­encer in pub­lic-pri­vate sec­tor en­gage­ment and de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

She is a high­ly sought-af­ter speak­er for key in­dus­try, mul­ti­lat­er­al, and aca­d­e­m­ic con­fer­ences on a re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al scale, and she reg­u­lar­ly ad­vis­es in­vestors and pri­vate sec­tor Boards of Di­rec­tors in the Caribbean. Be­cause of her com­mit­ment to mak­ing a dif­fer­ence, Dukha­ran has be­come a lead­ing voice in the call to re­duce gen­der and in­come in­equal­i­ty, elim­i­nate cor­rup­tion, and im­prove the re­silience of our economies through the in­tro­duc­tion of fis­cal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty frame­works.

Al­li­son Ga­jad­har

au­to­mo­tive

Al­li­son Ga­jad­har is a rare woman in a male-dom­i­nat­ed sport. With her pas­sion, she and oth­er women have been chang­ing the game. She won the T&T Au­to­mo­bile Sports As­so­ci­a­tion’s (TTASA) Sportsper­son of the Year Award for Drag Rac­ing (2018) and was a nom­i­nee for First Cit­i­zens Bank’s (FCB) Sports­woman of the Year award for Drag Rac­ing. She was al­so named the 2017 13 Sec­onds Brack­et Cham­pi­on and 2018 Over­all Points Leader.

The mo­tor­sport en­thu­si­ast and for­mer UWI grad­u­ate and em­ploy­ee start­ed decades ago with on­ly a ba­sic knowl­edge of rac­ing, but with the sup­port of her part­ner, she grad­u­al­ly learned more about the sport. She is al­so mo­ti­vat­ed by her fam­i­ly.

Nao­mi Chin Wing

In­ter­na­tion­al mod­el

Nao­mi Chin Wing, from Mal­ick in Trinidad, is a 23-year-old in­ter­na­tion­al mod­el who has, through­out her mod­el­ling ca­reer, worked with the most pro­lif­ic fash­ion hous­es. Her de­but fash­ion show was Yves St Lau­rent, which cre­at­ed a domi­no ef­fect open­ing doors to the cat­walks of some of the most pres­ti­gious shows in the fash­ion in­dus­try. Chin Wing is hav­ing a good time on the run­ways for in­ter­na­tion­al de­sign­ers Ro­chas Paris, Al­tuzarra, Gi­ambat­tista Val­li, John Gal­liano, Alexan­der Mc­Queen, Chris­t­ian Dior, Givenchy, Jean Paul Gaulti­er, and Mai­son Valenti­no. She has al­ready been a part of the New York Fash­ion Week 2018, the Lon­don Fash­ion Week 2018 and the Paris Au­tumn/Win­ter 2018 Fash­ion Week!

Chin Wing has graced the pages of Elle, Harp­er’s Bazaar In­dia, Ger­many’s Ma­te­r­i­al Mag­a­zine and Britain’s Vogue, POP Mag­a­zine, Vogue Spain, Hero­ine Mag­a­zine and Vogue Italia to name a few.

Dr Faith B Yis­rael

Pol­i­tics (To­ba­go)

Dr Faith B Yis­rael is the Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA). She al­so holds the po­si­tion of Sec­re­tary of Health Well­ness and So­cial Pro­tec­tion at the THA. An on­ly child, Yis­rael was born in Belle Gar­dens.

From high school in To­ba­go, she went on a To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly schol­ar­ship to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pitts­burgh, where her un­der­grad was in neu­ro­science. She com­plet­ed the neu­ro­science Bach­e­lor’s de­gree, but in­stead of med­ical school, she went in­to the Mas­ter of Pub­lic Health pro­gramme.

Yis­rael holds a Mas­ter’s in Pub­lic Health and is a Doc­tor of Pub­lic Health. She en­tered pol­i­tics in 2016 and con­test­ed the Good­wood/Belle Gar­den seat un­der a PDP (Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots) tick­et in 2017 but lost by on­ly five votes.

Nailah Black­man

En­ter­tain­ment

Nailah Black­man, 25, is a recog­nised so­ca artiste who be­gan singing at five while her pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer kicked off at 11. The grand­daugh­ter of the leg­endary Ras Shorty I (Garfield Black­man), the in­ven­tor of so­ca, and daugh­ter of ca­lyp­so artiste Ab­bi Back­man, she is clas­si­cal­ly trained not on­ly in voice but al­so in var­i­ous in­stru­ments, in­clud­ing the gui­tar, key­board and steel­pan. Black­man is al­so a pro­lif­ic song­writer and com­pos­er who writes and com­pos­es her songs. She is of­ten heav­i­ly booked for shows from North Amer­i­ca to Eu­rope, Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.

She was nom­i­nat­ed for ‘Best New In­ter­na­tion­al Act’ at the BET View­ers’ Choice Awards in 2018. That same year, she was nom­i­nat­ed as Best New So­ca Artist for the Your View Awards in Ja­maica.

Her song “Baila Ma­mi” was nom­i­nat­ed and won Groovy So­ca of the Year Fe­male at the 2018 In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Awards in St Lu­cia.

She is al­so part of the fash­ion in­dus­try and has launched her cloth­ing line called Sokah Gyal.

Rac­quel Moses

Cli­mate change

Rac­quel Moses, as the CEO of the Caribbean Cli­mate-Smart Ac­cel­er­a­tor, brings with her near­ly two decades of busi­ness man­age­ment ex­pe­ri­ence in the Caribbean re­gion, lead­ing the agency as it de­liv­ers its strat­e­gy.

The Caribbean Cli­mate-Smart Ac­cel­er­a­tor is an en­tre­pre­neur­ial en­gine es­tab­lished to dri­ve trans­for­ma­tive cli­mate ac­tion and re­silien­cy in the Caribbean. They mod­ernise dig­i­tal, phys­i­cal, and so­cial in­fra­struc­ture us­ing trans­for­ma­tion­al ap­proach­es to ad­dress the chal­lenges of cli­mate change, se­cur­ing a low-car­bon fu­ture.

At the helm, Moses works with key stake­hold­ers in gov­ern­ments and the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors to co-de­vel­op and agree on ac­cel­er­a­tor strate­gies to dri­ve in­vest­ment projects across the Caribbean. Through pri­vate and pub­lic part­ner­ships, the or­gan­i­sa­tion is work­ing to com­bat cli­mate change head-on by build­ing more re­silient coun­tries, cities and in­dus­tries with strong in­fra­struc­tures that can with­stand the ef­fects of cli­mate dis­as­ters.

Moses was ap­point­ed as Unit­ed Na­tions Glob­al Am­bas­sador for the Caribbean at COP26.

Ash­lee Bur­nett

Civ­il so­ci­ety

Ash­lee Bur­nett, an ed­u­ca­tor and ad­vo­cate, is a Salzburg Glob­al Sem­i­nar Fel­low and a 2022 Chevening Schol­ar pur­su­ing an MSc in Ed­u­ca­tion (Pol­i­cy and In­ter­na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment) at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bris­tol. She is a 2020 Women De­liv­er Young Leader and the 2022 Col­in Robin­son Hard Head Award Win­ner for her trans­for­ma­tion­al lead­er­ship and ac­tivism.

The founder of Fem­i­nitt Caribbean, Bur­nett leads a dy­nam­ic and pas­sion­ate core team and vol­un­teers that use ed­u­ca­tion, so­cial good, and con­ver­sa­tion to ad­vance ac­cess to com­pre­hen­sive sex­u­al­i­ty ed­u­ca­tion and sex­u­al and re­pro­duc­tive health ser­vices for young peo­ple in the Caribbean.

She is a writer, a mem­ber of the Queen’s Com­mon­wealth Trust Net­work and an ad­vis­er to the Glob­al Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee for the Caribbean re­gion at FRI­DA, The Young Fem­i­nist Fund.

She al­so serves as the Co-Co­or­di­na­tor of Trans­form Ed­u­ca­tion host­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tions Girls Ed­u­ca­tion Ini­tia­tive. Bur­nett holds a BA in Eng­lish Lan­guage and Lit­er­a­ture.

Max­ine Williams

Tech­nol­o­gy/so­cial me­dia

Max­ine Williams is the chief di­ver­si­ty of­fi­cer at Meta, for­mer­ly Face­book, and serves as a mem­ber of Meta’s most se­nior ex­ec­u­tive lead­er­ship team un­der the CEO. In this role, she and a team of Di­ver­si­ty and In­clu­sions spe­cial­ists de­vel­op strate­gies to at­tract, re­tain and sup­port the growth of un­der­rep­re­sent­ed peo­ple at the com­pa­ny.

Be­fore Meta, Williams, a lawyer with in­ter­na­tion­al and hu­man rights ex­pe­ri­ence, served as the di­rec­tor of di­ver­si­ty for a glob­al law firm.

Max­ine grad­u­at­ed from Yale Uni­ver­si­ty be­fore re­ceiv­ing her law de­gree with first-class ho­n­ours from Ox­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, where she was a Rhodes Schol­ar.

She has worked as an at­tor­ney in crim­i­nal, civ­il and in­dus­tri­al courts in T&T, and in the UK at the Privy Coun­cil. Williams has al­so worked with mul­ti­ple in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions on de­vel­op­ment and hu­man rights is­sues and had a ca­reer as a broad­cast jour­nal­ist, ac­tress and on-air pre­sen­ter. Williams is an in­de­pen­dent di­rec­tor on the Board of the pub­licly-trad­ed Massy Group of Com­pa­nies.

Ki­ran Ma­haraj

Busi­ness

Ki­ran Ma­haraj is the pres­i­dent of the T&T Cham­ber of Com­merce. Ma­haraj is man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Caribbean Lifestyle Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Mu­sic Ra­dio 97.1FM, The Peo­ple’s Sta­tion Ra­dio 90.5FM & Heart­beat Ra­dio 104.1FM, the lat­ter of which she found­ed as the world’s first ra­dio sta­tion for women. Ma­haraj be­gan her ca­reer in me­dia and en­ter­tain­ment as a free­lance jour­nal­ist over 20 years ago and was al­so a free­lance cor­re­spon­dent for CNN World Re­port for two years.

She is al­so a past pres­i­dent of the Greater Tu­na­puna Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce.

Ma­haraj is the pres­i­dent of the Me­dia In­sti­tute of the Caribbean head­quar­tered in Ja­maica and the for­mer pres­i­dent of the T&T Pub­lish­ers and Broad­cast­ers As­so­ci­a­tion.

Bev­er­ly Ram­sey-Moore

Cul­ture

Bev­er­ly Ram­sey-Moore is the pres­i­dent of Pan Trin­ba­go. In Oc­to­ber 2018, she be­came the first fe­male pres­i­dent in the 60-year his­to­ry of the or­gan­i­sa­tion, one of her great­est ac­com­plish­ments.

Ram­sey-Moore, from Black Rock, To­ba­go, has a track record of lead­er­ship and ser­vice to the com­mu­ni­ty and coun­try, vol­un­teer­ing as a com­mu­ni­ty leader, youth men­tor, cul­tur­al or­gan­is­er and per­former. This cat­a­pult­ed her pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer in pol­i­tics. In 1992, she was elect­ed to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly as the rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Black Rock/Whim. She served as the rep­re­sen­ta­tive for eight years and was ap­point­ed Sec­re­tary for Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and Cul­ture and As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary for Youth and Sport in the THA.

Ram­sey-Moore was born in­to an out­stand­ing and well-re­spect­ed steel­pan fam­i­ly in To­ba­go. Her fa­ther and five of her un­cles were found­ing mem­bers of To­ba­go’s old­est play­ing steel­band Katzen­jam­mers, where she stepped in as man­ag­er for the past 20 years and has led the group to sev­er­al vic­to­ries.

As Pan Trin­ba­go head, she and her team in­tro­duced sev­er­al pos­i­tive in­no­va­tions, in­clud­ing the na­tion­al Medi­um Band Fi­nals in To­ba­go, the No-Sea­son-For-Pan phi­los­o­phy, and Pan is Com­mu­ni­ty Soul.

She re­ceived sev­er­al awards, in­clud­ing the THA Com­mu­ni­ty Icon Award 2021, the Pan Trin­ba­go Lead­er­ship Award and the Pan Trin­ba­go Ap­pre­ci­a­tion for In­spi­ra­tional Lead­er­ship and Un­wa­ver­ing Com­mit­ment to Youth De­vel­op­ment Award.

Shireen Pol­lard

Law en­force­ment/Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence

Shireen Pol­lard is the head of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence Unit (GB­VU) formed in 2020. Pol­lard, a civil­ian man­ag­er, col­lab­o­rat­ed with the Ju­di­cia­ry of T&T in the US­AID Ju­ve­nile Court Project in the de­vel­op­ment of the Mul­ti-Agency Pro­to­col. She has six years of in­ves­tiga­tive ex­pe­ri­ence at the NYC Ad­min­is­tra­tion for Chil­dren Ser­vices, Di­vi­sion of Child Pro­tec­tion.

Chef Brigette Joseph

Culi­nary

Brigette Joseph is a food busi­ness con­sul­tant, ex­ec­u­tive/pri­vate chef and food safe­ty spe­cial­ist. Joseph’s busi­ness has tak­en her across the Caribbean and most re­cent­ly she has con­sult­ed on so­ca artiste, Gamal “Skin­ny Fab­u­lous” Doyle’s restau­rant, Sum­mer Rose Bar and Lounge in St Vin­cent. Joseph has been a chef for 15 years and has been op­er­at­ing her busi­ness for nine.

Her cook­ing style of­fers clean-cut flavours that stim­u­late the palette.

Be­cause of her in­tern­ships at lo­cal and re­gion­al restau­rants and a three-month stint at restau­rants in Greece, Joseph fell in love with the sim­ple, fresh flavours and tex­tures of Mediter­ranean cui­sine. So her sig­na­ture style of cook­ing is meant to ed­u­cate the palette.

Joseph start­ed cook­ing in child­hood, like many chefs, try­ing the recipes from tele­vi­sion cook­ing shows for her younger broth­er.

She even got the op­por­tu­ni­ty to spend a day in the Hilton Trinidad kitchen with then ex­ec­u­tive chef De­bra Sardinha-Metivi­er at age 13: prep­ping for meals decked out in a re­al chef’s jack­et. She earned her as­so­ciate de­gree in Culi­nary Man­age­ment from the T&T Hos­pi­tal­i­ty and Tourism In­sti­tute.

Maya Kir­ti-Nanan

Ad­vo­cate

At the age of 12, Maya Kir­ti-Nanan start­ed an or­gan­i­sa­tion to ad­vo­cate for her autis­tic broth­er and oth­ers on the autism spec­trum.

Since her broth­er’s autism di­ag­no­sis, Kir­ti-Nanan has sought to make T&T a place in­clu­sive of those with autism and oth­er spe­cial needs.

As founder and pres­i­dent of the Sib­lings and Friends Net­work, the youth arm of the NGO Sup­port Autism T&T reg­is­tered as the Autism Sup­port Net­work T&T, her or­gan­i­sa­tion ad­vo­cates for op­por­tu­ni­ties for peo­ple with spe­cial needs and or­gan­is­es fundrais­ers to cre­ate these op­por­tu­ni­ties.

At 17, she was named a re­cip­i­ent of the 2020 Di­ana Award for ad­vo­cat­ing and cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for those liv­ing with autism in T&T.

The Di­ana Award (named af­ter Di­ana, Princess of Wales) ho­n­ours young peo­ple who work to im­prove the lives of oth­ers. She be­came the first Di­ana Award re­cip­i­ent from T&T.

And at 18, she won the Youth Lead­er­ship: Com­mu­ni­ty Groups Award at the Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice’s Na­tion­al Youth Awards.