Fay­ola Fras­er

“I made a de­ci­sion that I was not just build­ing a coach­ing busi­ness. I was build­ing a move­ment: a green­house, a pro­tect­ed, nur­tur­ing, high-growth space where Caribbean women could come to breathe dif­fer­ent­ly, think big­ger, re­set emo­tion­al­ly, and grow fi­nan­cial­ly.”

This is how Shelly-Ann Aqui Solomon de­scribes the heart­beat of her life’s work. For her, coach­ing is not mere­ly a pro­fes­sion; it is a call­ing—a com­mit­ment to deep trans­for­ma­tion.

“When women in­ter­act with me, they don’t on­ly re­ceive strat­e­gy. They feel seen. They feel be­lieved in. They feel ca­pa­ble again.” Time and time again, clients echo the same sen­ti­ment: “We have a coach who lis­tens and nur­tures and gives guid­ance with strate­gies to achieve our goals. She shows us that we can all be a pic­ture of pos­si­bil­i­ty.”

For Solomon, this is the foun­da­tion of her brand: de­vel­op­ing the woman be­hind the busi­ness and pass­ing on the knowl­edge, growth and re­silience she has cul­ti­vat­ed.

Solomon’s jour­ney to­ward be­com­ing a trans­for­ma­tion­al leader be­gan in cen­tral Trinidad, where she was born, raised, and shaped by a cul­tur­al­ly rich fam­i­ly. With an In­di­an grand­moth­er and Chi­nese grand­fa­ther, she grew up nav­i­gat­ing di­verse worlds, each of­fer­ing its own tra­di­tions, lessons, and val­ues.

This mul­ti­cul­tur­al up­bring­ing mould­ed her in­to an adapt­able, re­spect­ful and open-heart­ed woman with a strong moral com­pass. From ear­ly on, she em­bod­ied com­pas­sion, ac­cep­tance, and a be­lief in the pow­er of per­son­al growth.

Her first ex­po­sure to the work­ing world came through the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­dus­try, where she be­gan as a teen and lat­er pur­sued stud­ies to be­come a phar­ma­cist. En­cour­aged by her fam­i­ly, Solomon learned to em­brace am­bi­tion bold­ly. They saw her po­ten­tial long be­fore she ful­ly recog­nised it, in­still­ing in her the mind­set that has guid­ed every chap­ter since: noth­ing is be­yond reach once you be­lieve in your­self.

Solomon mar­ried at 19 and wel­comed her first child at 25. As she nav­i­gat­ed mar­riage, moth­er­hood and her pro­fes­sion­al life, she re­alised the de­mands of her job were con­sum­ing the time she longed to give to her daugh­ter. Though present and pro­vid­ing for her needs, she lacked the space to tru­ly con­nect. That awak­en­ing pushed her to reeval­u­ate her path and seek pur­suits that would al­low her to bal­ance ca­reer as­pi­ra­tions with moth­er­hood—to be­come a ful­filled, pur­pose-dri­ven woman.

In 1999, with just $40 in hand, Solomon made a bold de­ci­sion that would re­shape her fu­ture. In­spired by the en­tre­pre­neur­ial women who in­flu­enced her child­hood, she stepped in­to busi­ness own­er­ship. She be­gan vo­cal coach­ing from her din­ing room, charg­ing $40 per ses­sion. What start­ed with a sin­gle stu­dent soon grew in­to a thriv­ing acad­e­my—and even­tu­al­ly a sev­en-fig­ure en­ter­prise. It was ear­ly proof that even small in­vest­ments in one­self can yield ex­tra­or­di­nary re­turns.

Dur­ing this pe­ri­od, her hus­band played a crit­i­cal role, pro­vid­ing fi­nan­cial sup­port and per­spec­tive-shift­ing in­sight. For four years, she bor­rowed mon­ey from him an­nu­al­ly to fund the acad­e­my’s recitals. Then, in the fourth year, he told her, “The busi­ness has to stand on its own now.” It was the nudge she need­ed to step ful­ly in­to in­de­pen­dence.

“It broke the de­pen­den­cy mind­set,” she re­calls. “It pushed me to be in­de­pen­dent and be­come a savvy en­tre­pre­neur.” That push un­locked new lev­els of busi­ness acu­men—turn­ing her hum­ble $40 be­gin­ning in­to a sev­en-fig­ure suc­cess.

By 2012, Solomon had be­come a force in the per­form­ing arts in­dus­try. She was a sought-af­ter vo­cal coach, styl­is­tic spe­cial­ist and re­spect­ed judge. When Berklee Col­lege of Mu­sic in­vit­ed her to ad­vance her train­ing, she grad­u­at­ed with a 97 per cent av­er­age. But de­spite the ac­co­lades, the packed sched­ule of over 100 clients a week and work­days stretch­ing from 9 am to 10 pm left her over­whelmed. Her busi­ness was thriv­ing, but she was not. She longed for more time with fam­i­ly, more flex­i­bil­i­ty and a life de­fined by her own terms.

That de­sire sparked an­oth­er trans­for­ma­tion. Solomon piv­ot­ed to dig­i­tal mas­tery, in­vest­ing in on­line mar­ket­ing at a time when few in her field were ex­plor­ing it. She stud­ied, ex­per­i­ment­ed, re­fined, and ap­plied what she learned. When the pan­dem­ic hit in 2019, she was ready. She tran­si­tioned her acad­e­my ful­ly on­line, de­liv­er­ing con­certs, class­es and pro­grammes vir­tu­al­ly. What many saw as cri­sis, she ex­pe­ri­enced as ac­cel­er­a­tion. Her mind­set had al­ready pre­pared her for change.

In 2021, Solomon re­tired from the per­form­ing arts and stepped in­to her next chap­ter as a glob­al busi­ness men­tor un­der the Po­si­tioned to Pro­pel Acad­e­my (PT­PA). To­day, her coach­ing reach­es women in more than 30 coun­tries across the Caribbean and di­as­po­ra. She teach­es that suc­cess is not about start­ing over—it’s about piv­ot­ing, lever­ag­ing your foun­da­tion, and ho­n­our­ing the wis­dom your jour­ney has al­ready giv­en you. A suc­cess­ful sea­son, she says, can block an even greater one if you don’t know when to shift.

Her work is root­ed in Caribbean spir­it—the re­silience, cre­ativ­i­ty, re­source­ful­ness, and abil­i­ty to “make some­thing out of noth­ing.” She re­minds women that Caribbean cul­ture is not a lim­i­ta­tion but a com­pet­i­tive edge. Caribbean women, she says, are in­no­v­a­tive, coura­geous and un­shake­able. When paired with glob­al best prac­tices, their po­ten­tial is lim­it­less.

Above all, Solomon en­cour­ages women to em­brace their fem­i­nin­i­ty—not to drown it in mas­cu­line en­er­gy or com­pete with men, but to bring their em­pa­thy, com­pas­sion, in­tel­li­gence and lived ex­pe­ri­ence in­to every room. To lis­ten to their clients more than their com­peti­tors. To trust in­tu­ition over noise. To ho­n­our emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence as much as strat­e­gy. Be­cause when a woman feels whole, aligned and sup­port­ed, her busi­ness grows nat­u­ral­ly.

Shelly-Ann Aqui Solomon has built far more than a coach­ing em­pire. She has built a move­ment—a green­house for women to grow not in the shad­ows, but in their full bril­liance. Through her work, she con­tin­ues to nur­ture a gen­er­a­tion of Caribbean women who are learn­ing not on­ly how to build busi­ness­es, but how to build them­selves. Root­ed in com­mu­ni­ty and sis­ter­hood, she con­tin­ues to in­spire women to rise bold­ly in­to the lives they were de­signed to lead.