Fay­ola K J Fras­er

Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor and Prin­ci­pal Pub­li­cist at Cham­bers Me­dia So­lu­tions Te­nille Clarke has tak­en a lead­ing role in am­pli­fy­ing the voice of the Caribbean in the in­ter­na­tion­al are­na.

It is this, her life’s work and in­deed her core pur­pose, that has earned her the recog­ni­tion of Fe­male En­tre­pre­neur of the Year, award­ed by NED­CO last week Sun­day for her com­pa­ny, Cham­bers Me­dia So­lu­tions’ tire­less work in the pub­lic re­la­tions sphere.

For Clarke, it has been a life­long cu­rios­i­ty about the world, her pen­chant for craft­ing com­pelling nar­ra­tives and pow­er­ful role mod­els that have brought her ad­mirable prowess in the field and suc­cess in her ca­reer.

Born and raised “Be­hind the Bridge” in the East Dry Riv­er area, Clarke rem­i­nisces that she had a great child­hood and want­ed for noth­ing, but there were cir­cum­stances she faced as a child “like find­ing spent bul­let shells on the ground out­side my home,” a con­sis­tent re­minder of the so­cial re­al­i­ties of the neigh­bour­hood.

From an ear­ly age, to­wards the end of her pri­ma­ry school tenure at Mu­cu­rapo Girls’ RC, she grew a love for lan­guage, cit­ing that the po­ten­tial to ex­plore cul­ture through the ve­hi­cle of the writ­ten and spo­ken word, ex­cit­ed her.

Through­out sec­ondary school at Bish­op Anstey High, she con­tin­ued this deep fas­ci­na­tion with lan­guage, “feel­ing drawn and con­nect­ed to this ex­cit­ing world.”

She added, “It made me want to know what ex­ist­ed out­side T&T.”

Pur­su­ing her ter­tiary stud­ies at York Uni­ver­si­ty in Toron­to, she was able to not on­ly ex­plore a for­eign cul­ture as she de­sired, but the recog­ni­tion of the unique­ness of T&T and the wider Caribbean with­in a glob­al con­text dawned on her.

“I’m a case study for not hav­ing it all fig­ured out ear­ly on. I didn’t al­ways know my ca­reer path was go­ing to be pub­lic re­la­tions,” she says thought­ful­ly.

At the uni­ver­si­ty lev­el, she com­plet­ed her Bach­e­lors in Hu­man­i­ties with a spe­cial­i­sa­tion in So­cial Sci­ence. It was a com­bi­na­tion of these aca­d­e­m­ic and per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ences that brought Clarke face to face with the re­al­i­ty that con­nect­ing peo­ple and shar­ing the hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence was what she was des­tined to do.

Her grand­moth­er, the for­mer dean of stu­dents at COSTATT, Dr Mer­le Hoyte, along with her late fa­ther, Gor­don Cham­bers, were con­stant sources of in­spi­ra­tion and mo­ti­va­tion for Clarke, and it was her fa­ther “who saw the light in me. He en­cour­aged the leap. Af­ter climb­ing to a pin­na­cle, the leap of faith that it took to get to the oth­er side ...”

Thus, Cham­bers Me­dia So­lu­tions was born. What is Clarke’s role as a pub­li­cist? “I trav­el and speak life in­to our ex­pe­ri­ences. I help us as Caribbean peo­ple un­der­stand our val­ue, and I help oth­ers un­der­stand the val­ue of col­lab­o­rat­ing with us.”

It is this thread of mak­ing our voic­es heard that runs seam­less­ly through her busi­ness. Her clients’ suc­cess is Clarke’s suc­cess, and more re­cent­ly, one of Cham­bers’ Me­dia So­lu­tions ma­jor high­lights has been the suc­cess of Hec­tor Roots Lewis, a Ja­maican tal­ent who brought life to the role of long-time drum­mer of Bob Mar­ley & the Wail­ers, Carl­ton ‘Car­ly’ Bar­rett in the One Love biopic.

“That defin­ing mo­ment for him, was al­so one for us,” Clarke says, as it so­lid­i­fied his place as a Caribbean tal­ent to be reck­oned with.

She al­so mus­es on Cham­bers’ col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Grena­da Tourism Au­thor­i­ty that earned Grena­da a men­tion on the To­day Show as a prime des­ti­na­tion for trav­ellers. An­oth­er high­light has been the suc­cess of Trinida­di­an de­sign­er Solange Govia, whose work, pub­li­cised by Clarke, has cel­e­brat­ed pin­na­cle mo­ments, in­clud­ing be­ing fea­tured in Essence Mag­a­zine and the New York Times.

Al­though the high­lights have been too nu­mer­ous to name in­di­vid­u­al­ly, Clarke’s main take­away from the suc­cess­es achieved has been that “Cham­bers Me­dia So­lu­tions is putting in the work!”

Al­though Clarke’s hard work is un­de­ni­able, she al­so pri­ori­tis­es bal­ance and self-care in her life.

“Af­ter the tran­si­tion of my dad in 2021, my ap­proach­es shift­ed in my val­ue sys­tem. My dad con­tin­ues to be my best friend, great­est cham­pi­on, and cel­e­brant of every­thing I’ve achieved.”

Clarke’s val­ues re­flect the im­por­tance of fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty to her, and she en­sures that she takes the time to care for her com­mu­ni­ty and her­self. “Cap­i­tal­ism will trick you in­to think­ing that I can on­ly rest and care about my­self af­ter achiev­ing some­thing. But I rest when I want to rest, not be­cause it’s a re­ward.”

She al­so de­fines a part of bal­ance as “an an­chor­ing of pur­pose,” as hav­ing found her life’s call­ing and pur­pose she feels set­tled and fo­cused on ex­e­cut­ing just that. An­oth­er way she seeks to care for her men­tal health is by “di­rect­ing the or­ches­tra and turn­ing my back to the crowd,” by which she means that she re­mains self-as­sured de­spite harsh opin­ions, and lets that con­fi­dence pre­cede her in any pro­fes­sion­al con­text.

As NED­CO’s Fe­male En­tre­pre­neur of the Year was an­nounced, Clarke’s mouth made a per­fect­ly round O, rep­re­sent­ing her shock at achiev­ing a na­tion­al award, which she deems such a high ho­n­our.

Grate­ful to NED­CO for see­ing favour in her work, Clarke feels a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to set an ex­am­ple for oth­er women in busi­ness, es­pe­cial­ly as her men­tors have done for her. She cred­its men­tors and friends such as Yvette Noel-Schure (known wide­ly as Be­y­once’s pub­li­cist) and Novia Mc Don­ald Whyte, along with the as­tute busi­ness­man her fa­ther was, as guid­ing her to form her busi­ness with pur­pose and pas­sion.

She en­cour­ages oth­er women in­ter­est­ed in leap­ing in­to en­tre­pre­neur­ship to keep their work eth­ic at the nu­cle­us, work hard, and nev­er take short­cuts. “When you fo­cus on in­tegri­ty and dig­ni­ty in your busi­ness, you un­der­stand that en­tre­pre­neur­ship is not just about dol­lars and cents; it’s far more mean­ing­ful than that.

“I en­ter spaces with the in­ten­tion of leav­ing it bet­ter than I found it.” Clarke is fierce­ly blaz­ing the trail as she looks to con­fer­ences, work­shops, and pan­els that she and her team are go­ing to be part of over the next few months, from Guyana to Grena­da to New York City.

Of­ten re­mem­ber­ing her hum­ble be­gin­nings, she is dri­ven by pur­pose to bring at­ten­tion and life to Caribbean peo­ple, com­mu­ni­ties and sto­ries, shin­ing her bril­liant light, and know­ing that re­gard­less of the naysay­ers, noth­ing is out­side of her reach.