Nass­er Khan

Adri­an Bharath, not the T&T crick­eter with the same name, al­though he does play a bit, the youth­ful-look­ing 46-year-old, is the chair­man of the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NIB).The NIB is re­spon­si­ble for the op­er­a­tion and ad­min­is­tra­tion of the coun­try's Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Sys­tem (NIS) which pro­vides pro­tec­tion to over 650,000 in­sured peo­ple and man­ages an in­vest­ment port­fo­lio in ex­cess of $22 bil­lion.Bharath, no re­la­tion to the Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try, is al­so a di­rec­tor of the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Prop­er­ty De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd (Nipdec). Nipdec pro­vides a di­ver­si­fied port­fo­lio of ser­vices in­clud­ing project man­age­ment, pro­cure­ment man­age­ment, fa­cil­i­ties man­age­ment and com­mer­cial ser­vices to the Gov­ern­ment of T&T on some of the coun­try's largest con­struc­tion projects and land­mark build­ings.

With an ex­pe­ri­ence base of 25 years, Bharath is al­so the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of AMB Cor­po­rate Fi­nance Ltd (AMB). Pri­or to set­ting up AMB in 2009, he had stints with Price­wa­ter­house­C­oop­ers Ltd (Trinidad and To­ba­go), for ten years, and with KP­MG, one of the largest ac­count­ing firms world­wide, for 11 years. He gained ex­ten­sive ex­pe­ri­ence in Lon­don, New York and Trinidad and To­ba­go, pri­mar­i­ly in in­vest­ment bank­ing and fi­nan­cial ser­vices.The well qual­i­fied Bharath, BA, FCA, CA, has plans for re­form­ing and im­prov­ing the sys­tem of the NIS/NIB. Bharath took time out from his hec­tic sched­ule to speak with the Sun­day Guardian.

Q: Where were you born and where did you grow up?

A: I was born in Wood­brook and grew up there.

At what schools/in­sti­tu­tions did you re­ceive your ed­u­ca­tion?

I start­ed at Wood­brook Pres­by­ter­ian School where my grand­fa­ther was the prin­ci­pal, then to Fa­ti­ma Col­lege and then to Not­ting­ham Uni­ver­si­ty in Eng­land.

Who were the peo­ple who have in­flu­enced you the most in your ca­reer and in life in gen­er­al, and how did they?

A big part of my life was in­flu­enced by the death of my par­ents, the late jus­tice Car­lyle and Joan Bharath, in a trag­ic car crash in 1999 and hav­ing to care for a younger sib­ling.

My fa­ther was al­ways my hero and a great in­spi­ra­tion es­pe­cial­ly in sports and in my ca­reer, and I loved him dear­ly.

But my moth­er was my rock. Even though she died 14 years ago, I still hear her voice and lis­ten to her.

That ma­ter­nal bond is in­ex­plic­a­ble.

When and how did you get in­to ac­count­ing?

I got in­to ac­count­ing at uni­ver­si­ty whilst do­ing a de­gree in In­dus­tri­al Eco­nom­ics. I need­ed the ac­counts to get ex­emp­tions from the first lev­el of the pro­fes­sion­al ex­ams to be­come a char­tered ac­coun­tant.

Tell us about your in­spi­ra­tion to do the type of work you do.

It's twofold. The night my par­ents died. My ten-year-old sis­ter at the time was prepar­ing for the SEA. I took care of her dur­ing that dif­fi­cult time. One of the hard­est things I had to do was ex­plain to her that mom and dad were nev­er com­ing home, but they were nev­er go­ing to leave us. All of a sud­den she was an or­phan, and some­one sug­gest­ed that I claim the re­lat­ed ben­e­fit for her on the NIS.

I nev­er knew at the time any such ben­e­fit ex­ist­ed. Now as chair­man I would like all cit­i­zens to know what ben­e­fits they are en­ti­tled to claim, es­pe­cial­ly those re­lat­ed to or­phans.

And then there are my beau­ti­ful daugh­ters Anya and Si­en­na. They are my world, and my life is de­vot­ed to them and their hap­pi­ness.

My pur­pose in ac­cept­ing the chair­man­ship at the NIB was to en­sure I con­tribute on a na­tion­al lev­el to their well-be­ing and that of all fu­ture gen­er­a­tions who will de­pend on the NIS.

This means the or­gan­i­sa­tion­al changes en­vi­sioned are for long term sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the NIB.

De­scribe your man­age­ment style.

My pref­er­ence is to be pre­cise in strate­gic de­ci­sion-mak­ing and sup­port­ive in en­abling ex­e­cu­tion.

I am a firm be­liev­er in re­ward­ing suc­cess and pe­nal­is­ing fail­ure. In my view if there is no penal­ty for fail­ure then medi­oc­rity pre­vails, and if there is no re­ward for suc­cess there is no mo­ti­va­tion to strive for ex­cel­lence.

What led you to join the NIB?

I joined the NIB six months ago in De­cem­ber 2012. The rea­son was to re­al­ly lead the de­vel­op­ment of one of the largest in­sti­tu­tions in the Caribbean at a time when it is crit­i­cal­ly need­ed on a mi­cro and macro eco­nom­ic scale.

What are the main trends in your in­dus­try right now?

These are chal­leng­ing eco­nom­ic times and in­vest­ment strat­e­gy, op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cy and pen­sion har­mon­i­sa­tion are cur­rent con­cerns that are be­ing ad­dressed.

What are the biggest risks, chal­lenges and op­por­tu­ni­ties fac­ing the NIB?

The chal­lenge is to sus­tain Na­tion­al In­sur­ance ben­e­fits in the long term.

The risk is to con­tain the ex­ist­ing $3.3 bil­lion short­fall in as­sets to meet fu­ture oblig­a­tions and to re­duce that short­fall by re­spon­si­ble in­vest­ing. That means con­sid­er­ing fi­nan­cial, eco­nom­ic and oth­er risk fac­tors whilst seek­ing high­er re­turns on in­vest­ments.

What plans do you have for the NIB's growth and de­vel­op­ment in T&T?

We are cur­rent­ly de­vel­op­ing our strate­gic plan for the next three years. It is en­vi­sioned that the NIB's in­fra­struc­ture can be im­proved by or­gan­i­sa­tion­al trans­for­ma­tion and by the de­vel­op­ment of mod­ern prin­ci­ples of cor­po­rate gov­er­nance, hu­man re­source and or­gan­i­sa­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, in­vest­ment bank­ing and risk man­age­ment.Re­gard­ing in­sur­ance op­er­a­tions, sys­tems and poli­cies need to be im­proved so as to max­imise op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cy in terms of con­tri­bu­tion col­lec­tion and ben­e­fit pay­ments. In or­der to achieve this we must have the align­ment of staff.I would al­so like the NIB to max­imise the ben­e­fits of tech­nol­o­gy, per­haps pro­vid­ing NIS in­for­ma­tion on­line and avail­able when you type in your NIS num­ber in­clud­ing con­tri­bu­tions, avail­able ben­e­fits, claims etc.

Who was your hero or idol grow­ing up (fic­tion­al or re­al or both) and why? And who do you ad­mire most to­day?

They would have to be in sports. Grow­ing up it was Diego Maradona in foot­ball and Viv Richards in crick­et. To­day it's Li­onel Mes­si.

What was the most dif­fi­cult de­ci­sion you ever had to make?

My younger daugh­ter Si­en­na had a 50/50 chance of liv­ing when she was born. The most dif­fi­cult de­ci­sion I ever had to make was to hand her over to the Neona­tal Unit of the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. They saved her life.

What was it like grow­ing up in your fam­i­ly?

It was great. As youths we lived every week­end on the North Coast in Ba­lan­dra, and my par­ents al­lowed us the free­dom to en­joy every facet of the sea.

What ad­vice would you give to some­one con­tem­plat­ing a vo­ca­tion/ca­reer such as yours?

Pur­su­ing any pro­fes­sion is chal­leng­ing, but don't give up if you firm­ly be­lieve you can suc­ceed and make a dif­fer­ence. My ca­reer has been in fi­nan­cial ser­vices in three very dif­fer­ent parts of the world. It was hard and some­times I thought of giv­ing up, but it al­lowed me so many great op­por­tu­ni­ties.

How do you bal­ance your fam­i­ly life with the de­mands/chal­lenges of your job?

I try to work to en­joy life with my fam­i­ly since this is what brings hap­pi­ness. Work does not con­sume my time. My fam­i­ly means the world to me es­pe­cial­ly since life is so short. I have ex­pe­ri­enced this first-hand since I al­ways thought my par­ents would have been around to­day to see what I have achieved.

What are the main rea­sons for your suc­cess?

Per­se­ver­ance and be­ing able to deal with fail­ure.

De­scribe your­self in two words, one be­gin­ning with A, the oth­er with B (your ini­tials)?

As­tute and brave.

What do you feel are the great­est ac­com­plish­ments of your ca­reer thus far?

Qual­i­fy­ing as a char­tered ac­coun­tant and work­ing on some of the largest trans­ac­tions in multi­na­tion­al banks in Lon­don and New York. Chair­man­ship at the NIB may al­so rank as a ma­jor ca­reer ac­com­plish­ment. I guess time will tell.