Fay­ola K J Fras­er

In her home tucked away in Diego Mar­tin, Avion Gray was the mid­dle child of three sis­ters in a tight­ly knit fam­i­ly with an en­tre­pre­neur­ial streak. From an ear­ly age, she ex­hib­it­ed a dri­ve to cre­ate and achieve. To­day, as a fin­tech en­tre­pre­neur and co-founder and CEO of Be­long, Gray has achieved re­mark­able suc­cess, over­com­ing sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges. Her plat­form is ded­i­cat­ed to her gen­er­a­tion—mil­len­ni­als—help­ing young peo­ple build long-term wealth through in­no­v­a­tive in­vest­ment so­lu­tions.

Grow­ing up with par­ents who had “an un­re­lent­ing com­mit­ment to ed­u­ca­tion and were pre­pared to face tremen­dous fi­nan­cial sac­ri­fices for their daugh­ters”, Gray thrived aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly at Bish­op Anstey High School. She fond­ly re­called her par­ents as her first and most im­pact­ful ex­am­ples of how ded­i­ca­tion, hard work, and self-be­lief can open doors.

Her fa­ther, a for­mer po­lice of­fi­cer who lat­er be­came an in­sur­ance ex­ec­u­tive, was among those who helped build AL­GI­CO from the ground up in the re­gion. Her moth­er, a life­long en­tre­pre­neur, ran mul­ti­ple busi­ness­es from home and nev­er worked for any­one else. Gray ab­sorbed from them a mod­el of in­de­pen­dence, de­ter­mi­na­tion, and re­silience.

Fi­nan­cial lit­er­a­cy came ear­ly and in prac­ti­cal ways. Stand­ing be­side her moth­er in gro­cery stores with a cal­cu­la­tor in hand, she learnt to pri­ori­tise needs, save, and stretch re­sources. She resold dou­bles at school for a small prof­it, and even her god­fa­ther’s fort­night­ly $20 gift be­came a les­son in pa­tience and fore­sight, safe­ly tucked away in a Pringles tin. “All of these ex­pe­ri­ences in­stilled in me at a very young age the im­por­tance of sav­ing and the pow­er of mon­ey,” she re­flects.

Grad­u­at­ing as class vale­dic­to­ri­an, Gray car­ried with her “a sol­id, all-round foun­da­tion, work eth­ic, con­fi­dence, and sense of pur­pose and du­ty as a Hi­lar­i­an” to Howard Uni­ver­si­ty, where she earned an AIG schol­ar­ship. Howard, a hub of Black ex­cel­lence in the US, ex­posed her to a vi­brant African and Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty and broad­ened her glob­al per­spec­tive. A study-abroad stint in Cannes, France, fur­ther ex­pand­ed her hori­zons, and she grad­u­at­ed sum­ma cum laude with a de­gree in In­ter­na­tion­al Busi­ness and Fi­nance.

Gray be­gan her pro­fes­sion­al jour­ney in in­vest­ment bank­ing at Wa­chovia (now Wells Far­go), hon­ing her an­a­lyt­i­cal skills and mas­ter­ing cor­po­rate val­u­a­tion over four years. Am­bi­tion then led her to Stan­ford for an MBA, af­ter ac­cep­tance to both Stan­ford and Har­vard. Be­ing im­mersed in the heart of Sil­i­con Val­ley trans­formed her vi­sion, of­fer­ing front-row ac­cess to the fast-paced fin­tech start-up cul­ture. “I fell in love with fin­tech,” she re­calls, in­spired by com­pa­nies like Pay­Pal and eBay scal­ing at break­neck speed.

Af­ter Stan­ford, Gray joined Clover, an ear­ly fin­tech start-up, where she led prod­uct com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion and part­ner­ship de­vel­op­ment. Over eight years, she launched six new mar­kets, trans­formed dis­tri­b­u­tion chan­nels, and po­si­tioned Clover as the fastest-grow­ing smart point-of-sale plat­form in the US. She was lat­er re­lo­cat­ed to the UK to spear­head the com­pa­ny’s Eu­ro­pean ex­pan­sion—a foun­da­tion that would pre­pare her for her own ven­ture.

In 2020, Gray co-found­ed Be­long, a fin­tech plat­form aimed at mo­bil­is­ing young savers in­to in­vest­ing. Ob­serv­ing that mil­len­ni­als in the UK and US were priced out of home­own­er­ship and fac­ing pen­sion crises, she recog­nised a gap: a gen­er­a­tion sit­ting on cash but un­sure how to grow it. Be­long dif­fer­en­ti­ates it­self by em­bed­ding be­hav­iour­al sci­ence in­to its plat­form, ad­dress­ing the emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal bar­ri­ers that of­ten pre­vent peo­ple from in­vest­ing.

Rais­ing pre-seed fund­ing was daunt­ing. As a Black fe­male founder, Gray of­ten faced im­poster syn­drome, par­tic­u­lar­ly when pitch­ing to in­vestors who rarely looked like her or in­vest­ed in com­pa­nies with CEOs like her. Yet metic­u­lous prepa­ra­tion, a strong part­ner­ship with her co-founder, re­peat­ed val­i­da­tion of her con­cept, and deep Tri­ni con­fi­dence and charm helped her break records and se­cure fund­ing. “In­vestors weren’t just bet­ting on a prod­uct; they were back­ing a con­fi­dent team, a prob­lem that could be solved, and a vi­sion,” she notes.

“My biggest chal­lenge has been im­poster syn­drome, which af­fects all en­tre­pre­neurs. It’s al­ready a tough jour­ney to start a busi­ness and raise cap­i­tal. As a Black fe­male founder, I’m even more sus­cep­ti­ble. But an­tic­i­pat­ing and ac­knowl­edg­ing it, and cel­e­brat­ing small wins, helps cre­ate mo­men­tum and tame it.”

Even with her ac­com­plish­ments, Gray’s jour­ney de­mands re­silience. She en­cour­ages young Caribbean girls and women to “re­sist the urge to dream alone and be ex­tro­vert­ed about your dreams, be­cause you nev­er know the spark that could be ig­nit­ed or the door that could open”. Her ground­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains cen­tral to her suc­cess, and she takes se­ri­ous­ly the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of “forg­ing a path for young women in the Caribbean who are trav­el­ling through life be­hind me”.

Gray will be lead­ing two ses­sions dur­ing the Caribbean Drag­ons’ an­nu­al Ig­nite Sum­mit 2025, held from Oc­to­ber 13 to 15 in T&T. She will share in­sights from her fundrais­ing jour­ney and de­liv­er an en­gag­ing lec­ture on the lessons learnt as a founder.

Her sto­ry is a blue­print for young Caribbean women: dream bold­ly, seek men­tor­ship, build net­works, and take de­lib­er­ate steps for­ward. With vi­sion, dili­gence, and heart, Avion Gray con­tin­ues to blaze a trail, re­shap­ing the fu­ture of glob­al fin­tech.