MI­A­MI–Ca­ble & Wire­less Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Plc (CWC) has an­nounced that Chris Dehring, chair­man of Lime Ja­maica and a mem­ber of the se­nior ex­ec­u­tive team, has de­cid­ed to re­turn to the for­ays of en­tre­pre­neur­ship af­ter six trans­for­ma­tive years with the com­pa­ny, ef­fec­tive Sep­tem­ber 30.

"On be­half of the board of di­rec­tors and the man­age­ment and staff of C&W, I want to thank Chris for his out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to our busi­ness dur­ing his time with the com­pa­ny," said Phil Bent­ley, C&W's CEO. "Chris has been a key leader in our busi­ness, spear­head­ing the largest mar­ket in the Caribbean for over six years as chair­man, and build­ing a sol­id foun­da­tion to dri­ve growth and prof­itabil­i­ty in one of our most im­por­tant mar­kets.

"His out­stand­ing rep­u­ta­tion through­out the Caribbean and strate­gic acu­men proved in­valu­able to the suc­cess of the merg­er with Colum­bus and we thank him for his lead­er­ship, and wish him well in his fu­ture en­deav­ours,."

"On a per­son­al note, I'd like to thank Chris for work­ing so close­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly with me on gain­ing the sup­port across the Caribbean for the ac­qui­si­tion of Colum­bus–this has been a game chang­er for C&W!" added Bent­ley.

Dehring, who has an out­stand­ing track record in busi­ness across the re­gion, or­ches­trat­ed new emer­gency leg­is­la­tion and the his­toric reg­u­la­to­ry rul­ings that re­dressed the anom­alies in the Ja­maican telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions mar­ket, paving the way for the com­pa­ny to grow its mo­bile sub­scriber base from just over 200k to 900k cur­rent­ly. He was in­stru­men­tal in re­viv­ing the Lime brand (now Flow), and busi­ness with in­no­v­a­tive mar­ket­ing and in­no­va­tions such as Lime Skool Aid which con­tin­ues to­day. Con­sid­ered a mav­er­ick among his peers, Dehring played a key role in the reg­u­la­to­ry ap­proval ne­go­ti­a­tions across the re­gion to fa­cil­i­tate the suc­cess­ful merg­er with Colum­bus In­ter­na­tion­al Inc.

Com­ment­ing on his tenure, the af­fa­ble chair­man and se­nior vice pres­i­dent for Gov­ern­ment and Reg­u­la­to­ry Af­fairs, said: "It was an ho­n­our to serve with so many out­stand­ing col­leagues at Ca­ble & Wire­less Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and to be able to close this re­mark­able era of my ca­reer by play­ing such an in­te­gral role in fi­nal­is­ing what un­doubt­ed­ly is a trans­for­ma­tion­al merg­er with Colum­bus.

"Sim­i­lar to the reg­u­la­to­ry ob­sta­cles we over­came in Ja­maica, there were mas­sive reg­u­la­to­ry hur­dles with the merg­er, but I'm de­light­ed to have had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to lever­age my ex­per­tise and be a part of a US$3 bil­lion dol­lar trans­ac­tion span­ning 42 coun­tries. Cou­pled with the turn­around and up­ward tra­jec­to­ry of C&W in Ja­maica and the Caribbean, I feel like my mis­sion has been ac­com­plished and it is time to move on to my next ad­ven­ture!"

Pri­or to join­ing C&W, Chris earned a sol­id rep­u­ta­tion in Ja­maica and across the Caribbean as a mar­ket­ing spe­cial­ist and en­tre­pre­neur. He was one of the founders of Ja­maica's first in­vest­ment bank and the Caribbean's first sports tele­vi­sion ca­ble chan­nel, and as man­ag­ing di­rec­tor and CEO, led the re­gion in stag­ing its first glob­al sport­ing event–the ICC Crick­et World Cup in 2007.