Dr Safeeya Mo­hammed

guardian.wemagazine@gmail.com

Michelle Oba­ma con­fi­dent­ly de­clared: ‘There is no lim­it to what we, as women, can ac­com­plish.”

For too long, the dig­i­tal in­dus­try was con­sid­ered off lim­its, or not a space women con­sid­ered far less ven­tured in­to. How­ev­er, the em­bold­ened steps of Saché Alexan­der-George, fu­elled by her pas­sion, dri­ve and cre­ativ­i­ty, are break­ing those stereo­types, chang­ing the nar­ra­tive and in­spir­ing oth­ers to re-imag­ine the fu­ture.

With more than 70,000 ap­pli­cants in 2023, this pres­ti­gious award is high­ly com­pet­i­tive as on­ly two per cent of those that ap­ply are even­tu­al­ly se­lect­ed. There­fore, to be se­lect­ed for a Chevening Schol­ar­ship is a mark of dis­tinc­tion and recog­ni­tion.

Jes­sel Crispin Brizan and Saché Alexan­der-George are Trinidad and To­ba­go’s 2023 Chevening re­cip­i­ents, award­ed with ful­ly fund­ed schol­ar­ships to pur­sue mas­ter’s de­grees in the Unit­ed King­dom.

British High Com­mis­sion­er Har­ri­et Cross said: “Huge con­grat­u­la­tions to Saché and Jes­sel on their achieve­ment! I am de­light­ed that they are pur­su­ing Mas­ter’s de­grees so rel­e­vant to T&T’s de­vel­op­ment, specif­i­cal­ly in the cre­ative sec­tor. This is what the Chevening schol­ar­ship is about: em­pow­er­ing peo­ple from all walks of life and back­grounds, who are pas­sion­ate and in­ter­est­ed in pro­vid­ing so­lu­tions and lead­er­ship to cre­ate a bet­ter fu­ture. I wish Saché and Jes­sel all the best in their stud­ies and look for­ward to the new ideas they will bring back to ben­e­fit this coun­try and share with oth­ers.”

WE were thrilled to con­verse with this 2023 Chevening schol­ar and ex­plore her suc­cess strat­e­gy, her why and her next steps.

Alexan­der-George, an ex­pe­ri­enced Dig­i­tal Mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sion­al, an ad­vo­cate for small busi­ness growth, and a lover of the arts and cul­ture, will pur­sue an MSc in Dig­i­tal En­tre­pre­neur­ship at Lough­bor­ough Uni­ver­si­ty from Oc­to­ber this year. While she holds a BSc in In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions, her pas­sion for cre­ative sto­ry­telling drew her to the fas­ci­nat­ing world of dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing.

The mo­ment, the re­sult was re­ceived . . .

“Win­ning the schol­ar­ship was an in­cred­i­ble mo­ment. I felt a mix of ex­cite­ment, deep grat­i­tude, and con­fir­ma­tion that my work was valu­able,” Alexan­der-George ex­u­ber­ant­ly re­called.

It was a sig­nif­i­cant mo­ment that reaf­firmed her pas­sion and com­mit­ment to her cho­sen field.

“Dig­i­tal En­tre­pre­neur­ship is a sig­nif­i­cant field be­cause it com­bines the pow­er of en­tre­pre­neur­ship with the dig­i­tal land­scape. It in­volves lever­ag­ing dig­i­tal plat­forms, tech­nolo­gies, and strate­gies to start, grow, and scale busi­ness­es. In to­day’s in­ter­con­nect­ed world, dig­i­tal en­tre­pre­neur­ship of­fers lim­it­less op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­no­va­tion, glob­al reach, and scal­a­bil­i­ty.

“It al­lows in­di­vid­u­als to cre­ate their own paths, dis­rupt in­dus­tries, and make a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact. It’s a field that em­braces cre­ativ­i­ty, adapt­abil­i­ty, and the abil­i­ty to lever­age dig­i­tal tools to dri­ve suc­cess.”

“I re­mem­ber think­ing how proud my mom would be if she were here and that fills my heart. Nav­i­gat­ing my child­hood and ado­les­cence with­out my mom and her guid­ance was un­de­ni­ably chal­leng­ing, los­ing her from age ten, but it al­so in­stilled in me a de­ter­mi­na­tion to make the most of every op­por­tu­ni­ty.

“While the void left by her ab­sence can nev­er be com­plete­ly filled, I learned to chan­nel my grief in­to a source of strength, us­ing it to fu­el my pur­suit of mean­ing­ful en­deav­ours and to ho­n­our her mem­o­ry through my ac­com­plish­ments. This ex­pe­ri­ence taught me to cher­ish re­la­tion­ships and em­brace life’s un­cer­tain­ties with courage.”

Her en­tre­pre­neur­ial jour­ney in­cludes ver­sa­tile mean­ing­ful en­deav­ours that con­tin­ue to shape her path.

“My jour­ney start­ed as a small busi­ness own­er my­self, launch­ing my own or­gan­ic cos­met­ic line while in un­der­grad, sim­ply as a means to earn ex­tra mon­ey, but I wasn’t en­tire­ly able to grow that brand due to my own lim­it­ed ex­pe­ri­ence and knowl­edge of how to mar­ket and up­scale the busi­ness. The birth of this busi­ness, though, gave me enough in­sight to em­pathize with the small busi­ness own­er ex­pe­ri­ence.

“Go­ing on to work in me­dia for WE mag­a­zine ex­posed me to so many re­mark­able women who not on­ly in­spired me but al­so un­veiled the press­ing re­al­i­ty that nu­mer­ous small busi­ness own­ers were in dire need of com­pre­hen­sive so­lu­tions to fos­ter their dig­i­tal growth. This is where it all came to­geth­er for me and grew my pas­sion for what I do now.”

The chal­lenges of the dig­i­tal in­dus­try

Alexan­der-George al­ready walks the path as a bea­con of in­spi­ra­tion for oth­er women as­pir­ing to carve their niche in the dig­i­tal land­scape, earn­ing re­spect and recog­ni­tion among her peers. Hav­ing worked with more than 30 lo­cal, re­gion­al, and glob­al brands, she con­tin­ues to recog­nise the need for dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly for small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es (SMEs), and re­mains com­mit­ted to equip­ping them with strate­gies and so­lu­tions to gain com­pet­i­tive­ness in the dig­i­tal space.

How­ev­er, she ad­mits: “The dig­i­tal in­dus­try, while dy­nam­ic and promis­ing, has its share of chal­lenges, par­tic­u­lar­ly for women. I’ve ap­proached these chal­lenges as op­por­tu­ni­ties for growth. Be­ing a fe­male in this field, I’ve en­coun­tered in­stances of skep­ti­cism and sub­tle bias. Rather than let­ting this de­ter me, I’ve har­nessed these ex­pe­ri­ences to demon­strate my ca­pa­bil­i­ties and prove that be­ing a woman in this field is not a lim­i­ta­tion.”

Over the past five years, by con­sis­tent­ly de­liv­er­ing in­no­v­a­tive so­lu­tions and stay­ing well-re­searched on trends with­in the in­dus­try, Alexan­der-George has been en­cour­aged by the var­i­ous dig­i­tal cam­paign man­age­ments that cre­at­ed sig­nif­i­cant suc­cess­es for her clients.

Grat­i­tude is key

Saché Alexan­der-George de­scribes her­self as stead­fast, am­bi­tious, grate­ful and ex­press­es her deep grat­i­tude to those who have played a piv­otal role in her life and this process. 

“A very spe­cial thank you to the Chevening FC­DO and the UK gov­ern­ment for be­stow­ing up­on me the ho­n­our of a pres­ti­gious schol­ar­ship. Their be­lief in my po­ten­tial fu­els my de­ter­mi­na­tion to ex­cel.

“To my fa­ther and sib­lings, your un­con­di­tion­al love and be­lief in me have been my foun­da­tion. My ever-sup­port­ive hus­band, Cas­sell George, your un­wa­ver­ing en­cour­age­ment and be­lief in my dreams have been my an­chor. You’ve stood by me through every chal­lenge and tri­umph and for that I’m pro­found­ly grate­ful.

“I’m in­debt­ed to the col­lec­tive of dear friends whose names are too nu­mer­ous to list. The Lons­dale Saatchi and Saatchi fam­i­ly, for wel­com­ing me in­to their fold, I’m grate­ful for the learn­ing and growth op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“To my dear friends, Ash­lee Bur­nett and Kearn Williams, whose con­stant sup­port has up­lift­ed my spir­its. Your pres­ence, your en­cour­age­ment, and your friend­ship have en­riched my life im­mea­sur­ably. Last­ly, to all who’ve crossed my path, in­spir­ing me, of­fer­ing an open ear, and giv­ing me the courage to move for­ward, your pres­ence has been a source of strength.”

What mes­sage would you want to tell your younger self? 

“I would as­sure her, be­yond any doubt, that her feel­ings aren’t un­found­ed. Life has a beau­ti­ful way of weav­ing its ta­pes­try and all the pieces will align in their own time. Keep nur­tur­ing those dreams, main­tain­ing that un­shak­able be­lief. Know that the puz­zle of this life will even­tu­al­ly re­veal its stun­ning pic­ture. God’s plan is AL­WAYS per­fect!”

In­ter­est­ed in ap­ply­ing for a Chevening Schol­ar­ship?

For the past 40 years, the Chevening has been the UK gov­ern­ment’s in­ter­na­tion­al schol­ar­ships pro­gramme. Suc­cess­ful Chevening can­di­dates come from a di­verse range of coun­tries and back­grounds, but they all demon­strate the pas­sion, vi­sion and skills need­ed to shape a bet­ter world.

Chevening of­fers a unique op­por­tu­ni­ty for fu­ture lead­ers, in­flu­encers, and de­ci­sion-mak­ers from all over the world to de­vel­op pro­fes­sion­al­ly and aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly, net­work ex­ten­sive­ly, ex­pe­ri­ence the UK’s cul­ture, and build last­ing pos­i­tive re­la­tion­ships with the UK.

The For­eign, Com­mon­wealth and De­vel­op­ment Of­fice (FC­DO) and part­ner or­gan­i­sa­tions of­fer the schol­ar­ship to study in the UK for one year on a ful­ly fund­ed mas­ter’s de­gree course.

The process of se­lect­ing Chevening schol­ars takes a min­i­mum of eight months from the ap­pli­ca­tion dead­line to when ap­pli­cants are con­di­tion­al­ly se­lect­ed for an award.

Ap­pli­ca­tions for 2024/25 schol­ar­ships will open on Sep­tem­ber 12, 2023.

For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion: https://www.chevening.org/schol­ar­ship/trinidad-and-to­ba­go/