This week, the T&T?Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce con­tin­ues with the third and fi­nal in­stal­ment of a three-part se­ries which re­pro­duces the bi­ogra­phies of the three in­ductees for 2012 to its Busi­ness Hall of Fame dur­ing a gala cer­e­mo­ny held on No­vem­ber 10.

The year was 1962 and 16 year-old Joseph Esau stood in the streets near his East Dry Riv­er home and cel­e­brat­ed with the rest of the coun­try the birth of a new na­tion. In those heady days, the stu­dent of Fa­ti­ma Col­lege, and grad­u­ate of Nel­son Street Boys' and Rosary Boys' RC schools, was full of ex­cite­ment, proud to be part of the new­ly-in­de­pen­dent T&T. Joseph Esau's de­vo­tion to this coun­try was im­print­ed in him on that day, and is the source of his in­nu­mer­able con­tri­bu­tions to T&T.

Af­ter sec­ondary school, Esau worked as a trainee ac­coun­tant with Pan­nell Fitz­patrick and Com­pa­ny, char­tered ac­coun­tants, and was sec­ond­ed to the firm's Lon­don of­fice in Jan­u­ary 1969.

In 1971, now qual­i­fied as a cer­ti­fied ac­coun­tant, he re­turned to set­tle in the coun­try of his birth. He had worked in Lon­don for two and a half years, as an au­dit su­per­vis­er and se­nior, and soon af­ter his re­turn was pro­mot­ed to au­dit man­ag­er at Pan­nell's (now Ernst and Young) Trinidad of­fice.

He went on to build an out­stand­ing pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer, es­tab­lish his own fi­nan­cial con­sult­ing firm and build a rep­u­ta­tion for fi­nan­cial wiz­ardry.

Over an un­bro­ken pe­ri­od of 25 years, Esau would have the rare dis­tinc­tion of be­ing called on by four dif­fer­ent po­lit­i­cal ad­min­is­tra­tions to serve the peo­ple of T&T, through di­rec­tor­ships on sev­er­al state boards.

His par­al­lel paths in the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors would take him across to De­loitte and Touche (now Price­wa­ter­house­C­oop­ers) in 1975, ris­ing rapid­ly in the ranks through hard work, ded­i­ca­tion and a shrewd knowl­edge of the in­tri­ca­cies of his var­ied clients' op­er­a­tions and leav­ing as part­ner.

He went on to launch his own con­sult­ing firm, In­te­grat­ed Fi­nan­cial Coun­selling, in 1983, which fo­cused on merg­ers and ac­qui­si­tions, and projects that re­quired re­struc­tur­ing or re­fi­nanc­ing: in­clud­ing one that stands to this day as one the most im­pres­sive fi­nan­cial deals in the his­to­ry of T&T.

From bank­rupt­cy to re­cap­i­tal­i­sa­tion

In 1986, dur­ing a time of deep re­ces­sion in the coun­try, the McE­near­ney Al­stons (McAL) con­glom­er­ate was fac­ing bank­rupt­cy. Joe Esau de­vel­oped the re­cap­i­tal­i­sa­tion and busi­ness plan that was ac­cept­ed by the McAL board. Joe was in­vit­ed to the take up the po­si­tion of group fi­nance di­rec­tor just be­fore the ANSA in­vest­ment in McAL, with spe­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for im­ple­ment­ing his re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion plan.

He was ap­point­ed group man­ag­ing di­rec­tor with­in one year of join­ing McAL.

As a re­sult of Esau's di­rec­tives, fresh cap­i­tal was in­ject­ed, waste trimmed, un­pro­duc­tive man­age­ment and ac­tiv­i­ties axed, and new ar­eas of in­vest­ment pur­sued.

These in­clud­ed the ex­pan­sion of the group's man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor and con­sol­i­da­tion of the loss-mak­ing brew­ing busi­ness, through the ac­qui­si­tion of Na­tion­al Brew­ing Com­pa­ny, pro­duc­er of Stag beer. McE­near­ney Al­stons went on to be­come the cor­ner­stone in the build­ing of the ANSA McAL Group, af­ter Joe's res­ig­na­tion in 1990.

To­day, the strength of ANSA McAL is a liv­ing tes­ti­mo­ny to Joe Esau's skil­ful man­age­ment in those three de­ci­sive years as Group man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, turn­ing around the bank­rupt McAL to a po­si­tion of sol­id fi­nan­cial health that, as ANSA McAL, en­dures to this day.

In time, he would lend these same skills to the Vic­tor E Mout­tet Group in its ac­qui­si­tion in 1997 of the 37 KFC and Piz­za Hut restau­rants of Pres­tige Hold­ings Ltd (PHL) from Pep­si­Co In­ter­na­tion­al. He be­came chair­man, led the com­pa­ny to a pub­lic share of­fer­ing in 1999, and con­tin­ues to serve on that board, hav­ing re­cent­ly re­signed as chair­man af­ter 15 years in that po­si­tion.

To­day, PHL op­er­ates 112 KFC, Piz­za Hut, Sub­way and TGI Fri­days' restau­rants.

Joe Esau was al­so a key mind be­hind the part­ner­ship that brought PriceS­mart, Pay­less and the Mar­riott groups to T&T, Ja­maica and Bar­ba­dos, while RBTT Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings, One Caribbean Me­dia and the T&T Stock Ex­change, among oth­ers, have all had the ben­e­fit of his fi­nan­cial as­tute­ness in­side the board­room.

His pres­ti­gious rep­u­ta­tion in the pri­vate sec­tor was matched by an equal­ly out­stand­ing per­for­mance in the pub­lic sec­tor where he was on the boards of the T&T Tele­phone Com­pa­ny Ltd, from 1972 to 1987; T&T Oil Com­pa­ny Ltd, from 1985 to 1986 and T&T Free Zone Com­pa­ny Ltd, from 1989 to 1991.

Di­vest­ing BWIA

Giv­en his suc­cess at ANSA McAL, it was no sur­prise when, in 1991, the State came call­ing with one of its tough­est as­sign­ments, ask­ing Esau to take the reins as ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of the be­lea­guered state air­line, BWIA.

That as­sign­ment re­quired tough and un­pop­u­lar changes but, by the end of his three-year term, BWIA was ready for di­vest­ment, even if sub­se­quent de­vel­op­ments were to un­do much of the ef­fort.

Along the way, Joe Esau made his con­tri­bu­tion to na­tion­al life through sev­er­al high-lev­el com­mit­tees in­clud­ing:

• The 1979 State Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee on the Di­vest­ment of Shares in State En­ter­pris­es

• The Cap­i­tal Mar­kets Work­ing Group on the es­tab­lish­ment of the T&T?Stock Ex­change

• The 1984 ad­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee to de­ter­mine the fu­ture of the Iron and Steel Com­pa­ny of T&T, of which he was chair­man

• The 1987 Se­cu­ri­ties Mar­ket Coun­cil

• The 1988 com­mit­tee to re­view the IMF op­er­a­tions in T&T.

But along­side the pri­vate busi­ness and the pub­lic ser­vice, an­oth­er dream was un­fold­ing for Joe Esau; one that would be an en­dur­ing lega­cy for gen­er­a­tions of young peo­ple.

In 1989, in an ini­tia­tive tak­en with friends and as­so­ciates, Esau threw his weight be­hind the de­vel­op­ment of the In­sti­tute of Busi­ness in a pri­vate sec­tor col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies.

In 23 years of un­bro­ken ser­vice as chair­man of the fi­nance com­mit­tee, Esau played a piv­otal role in grow­ing the IOB from a hum­ble project fight­ing for class­room space in many lo­ca­tions, in­to the am­bi­tious Arthur Lok Jack Grad­u­ate School of Busi­ness, which to­day boasts of its own cam­pus with more than 1,000 stu­dents in ten pro­grammes, and a stel­lar list of grad­u­ates, in­clud­ing our cur­rent Prime Min­is­ter.

As Ronald Har­ford, Re­pub­lic Bank's chair­man tes­ti­fies, it is large­ly to his cred­it that the In­ter­na­tion­al Fi­nan­cial Cor­po­ra­tion loan was ob­tained and the en­dow­ments rolled in.

To­day, at 66, Joe Esau is still a force to be reck­oned with, even af­ter nar­row­ing his na­tion­al con­tri­bu­tion to serv­ing on just sev­en boards. But he is be­gin­ning to change course, and loves the qui­et time spent with his wife, son and grand­chil­dren. He en­joys many forms of cul­tur­al ex­pres­sion, es­pe­cial­ly Car­ni­val, and is al­so an avid sport fish­ing fan.

In be­tween, he con­tin­ues to re­ceive spe­cial joy in men­tor­ing young busi­ness minds, hap­py to pass on the ex­pe­ri­ence of a unique life.

Joseph Esau's work in the pub­lic and pro­fes­sion­al sec­tors has demon­strat­ed what hard work, de­ter­mi­na­tion, courage, an as­tute mind and love of coun­try can pro­duce, and his im­por­tant con­tri­bu­tion has helped to shape mod­ern T&T.

The T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce was, in­deed, ho­n­oured to in­duct Joe­sph Esau in­to the Busi­ness Hall of Fame.

T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce