Fay­ola Fras­er

One of our 23 Women to Watch has been con­sis­tent­ly watched by the ma­jor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go. For many years, Gol­da Lee Bruce was a night­ly vis­i­tor to T&T house­holds, a well-known jour­nal­ist, me­dia pro­fes­sion­al and news an­chor who ap­peared both on CN­MG and CNC3 7PM news. Then, as now, Bruce la­bels her­self as a “sto­ry­teller”, even af­ter mak­ing a tran­si­tion from the me­dia to de­vel­op­ment com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

At present, Bruce is a Se­nior Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Of­fi­cer at an in­ter­na­tion­al or­ga­ni­za­tion in Wash­ing­ton, DC, and a first-time au­thor, re­cent­ly re­leas­ing her de­but nov­el. Bruce, who has made a name for her­self in the com­mu­ni­ca­tions are­na, seam­less­ly climb­ing the ranks to es­tab­lish her­self in­ter­na­tion­al­ly as a revered com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist, still clings tight­ly to her roots, both as a Tri­ni and a jour­nal­ist, as­sert­ing that the “ink (of jour­nal­ism) nev­er leaves your blood.”

Born and raised in Diego Mar­tin, Bruce grew up in a ma­tri­ar­chal house­hold with her moth­er, aunt and sis­ter, fol­low­ing the pass­ing of her fa­ther. Named af­ter a pow­er­ful fe­male leader, Gol­da Meir, her name apt­ly has an equal­ly pow­er­ful mean­ing, “made of gold.” Bruce’s en­er­gy and bril­liance are pos­i­tive­ly con­ta­gious, and many can re­call the nights she lit up TV screens, her ef­fer­ves­cent spir­it lend­ing well to the cul­ture of tele­vi­sion me­dia.

She re­mem­bers from a very young age en­joy­ing both hear­ing and re­lay­ing sto­ries, be­ing the one cho­sen in school to make speech­es and hav­ing few qualms about speak­ing in pub­lic fo­ra.

“It was very clear to see, from ear­ly on, the path that led me to com­mu­ni­ca­tions,” she said, at­tribut­ing some of her prowess in the field to be­ing raised “in a house­hold of women who were all out­spo­ken, in­tel­li­gent and fear­less.”

Af­ter at­tend­ing Bish­op Anstey High School, she went to St Fran­cois Girls for Sixth Form, where she found her­self blos­som­ing and dis­cov­er­ing her true call­ing.

Af­ter at­tend­ing the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Mona, and Co­lum­bia School of Jour­nal­ism, she en­tered the me­dia as a young jour­nal­ist at CN­MG and Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed (CNC3).

Dur­ing her tenure at CNC3, she ex­pe­ri­enced what she de­scribes as one of her great­est chal­lenges and al­so a pre­mier high­light of her ca­reer - an in­ter­view with Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley. Bruce be­lieves that the most chal­leng­ing mo­ments of her ca­reer con­sti­tute the most defin­ing pro­fes­sion­al mo­ments. The in­ter­view with Dr Row­ley was slat­ed for 90 min­utes and Bruce felt whol­ly un­sure about whether “she had the chops”, if she could sus­tain her mo­men­tum, and whether she was good enough.

As she re­flect­ed on the much an­tic­i­pat­ed day, Bruce re­called suc­cess­ful­ly keep­ing her nerves at bay, af­firm­ing that “when the ground didn’t swal­low me and I fin­ished what was a strong in­ter­view, it proved to me I could do dif­fi­cult things.” In prov­ing to her­self that she could rise to the oc­ca­sion, she felt her­self stretch and grow. This, along with oth­er piv­otal ca­reer mo­ments, have served her fun­da­men­tal­ly not on­ly as a jour­nal­ist, but have pro­vid­ed an un­shake­able foun­da­tion for her ca­reer tran­si­tion.

One neat thread that con­nects Gol­da’s var­i­ous pro­fes­sion­al pur­suits is her unique­ly pow­er­ful abil­i­ty to com­mu­ni­cate.

“Wher­ev­er I am, I’m a sto­ry­teller,” she says.

Al­though the tran­si­tion not on­ly to a dif­fer­ent ca­reer, but to a dif­fer­ent coun­try, seemed “big and scary,” the tools that served her faith­ful­ly in the me­dia con­tin­ue to serve her as a com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­fes­sion­al. Her skills in mod­er­a­tion, sto­ry­telling, writ­ing and re­lay­ing in­for­ma­tion were all honed dur­ing her me­dia train­ing and she us­es them con­sis­tent­ly in her cur­rent pro­fes­sion. She cred­its the me­dia in mak­ing her “ag­ile, adapt­able and re­spon­sive,” and “not grip­ping on­to things too tight­ly,” de­scrib­ing the dis­ap­point­ment of pour­ing her heart in­to a sto­ry but it be­ing ul­ti­mate­ly cut from the news­cast by the pro­duc­er. Bruce has be­come, through the sum of her me­dia ex­pe­ri­ences, tough enough to stand firm in the face of dif­fi­cult ob­sta­cles, while be­ing si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly mal­leable to bend and adapt to un­fore­seen chal­lenges.

Bruce cred­its her non-tra­di­tion­al fam­i­ly struc­ture with giv­ing her the op­por­tu­ni­ty to el­e­vate and ad­vance her­self in the pro­fes­sion­al space. A de­vot­ed moth­er to two chil­dren, a nine-year-old son and four- year-old daugh­ter, up­on their re­lo­ca­tion to Wash­ing­ton DC, Bruce’s hus­band as­sumed the role of pri­ma­ry care­giv­er to their chil­dren. Her hus­band, who al­so has “ink in his blood”, worked in the me­dia for 20 years, and she fond­ly re­calls dur­ing the dat­ing pe­ri­od that they would of­ten hap­pen up­on ir­re­sistible sto­ries to­geth­er.

“One night, we were dri­ving down to Clax­ton Bay (where her now hus­band lived), and we passed an ac­ci­dent on the road, and with­out say­ing any­thing, we both knew we had to turn back, and re­port on it.”

She recog­nis­es her hus­band’s as­sump­tion of the care­giv­ing role as the mech­a­nism that has cre­at­ed bal­ance, peace and sta­bil­i­ty in their fam­i­ly, and says that “I couldn’t pur­sue any of these things I do with­out our fam­i­ly set up and the sup­port of my hus­band.”

Adding to her list of achieve­ments, Bruce is now a pub­lished au­thor, and has just re­leased her de­but nov­el, “Born on an Is­land”. Re­call­ing her as­ser­tion that her great­est ca­reer high­lights have been in the over­com­ing of seem­ing­ly in­sur­mount­able chal­lenges, Bruce con­sid­ers the en­durance and de­ter­mi­na­tion of au­thor­ing a book to be one of her proud­est mo­ments.

The goal of her book, “is to mo­ti­vate and in­spire,” spread­ing the sto­ry of her own jour­ney, and shar­ing a mes­sage that she wished to re­ceive ear­li­er on, that “the world of pos­si­bil­i­ties ex­ists.” Her book start­ed as a cop­ing mech­a­nism for her flight anx­i­ety, which she would quell by writ­ing for the du­ra­tion of a flight, flesh­ing out sto­ries about her life that were al­ready in her head. The book chron­i­cles the first 25 years of her life, com­ing to know her­self in Trinidad, study­ing in Ja­maica, and en­ter­ing the me­dia. Writ­ing the book was a nat­ur­al ex­ten­sion of her love for shar­ing and sto­ry­telling, and a way to shine a light on some of the ma­jor men­tal health chal­lenges she has faced.

Gol­da Lee Bruce has fear­less­ly carved a path for her­self, and con­tin­ues to bold­ly as­cend the ranks of the com­mu­ni­ca­tions field. En­cour­ag­ing oth­ers to not fear their own am­bi­tions, she calls on women to “make the de­ci­sion to not be afraid,” and be­lieve that “as you step to­wards your goals, the road will con­tin­ue to ap­pear.” We con­tin­ue to watch and root for Bruce, mak­ing a name for her­self in­ter­na­tion­al­ly and turn­ing every pur­suit she touch­es in­to pure gold.

- Fay­ola K J Fras­er is a pro­fes­sion­al in the in­ter­na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment are­na. She has a BA in In­ter­na­tion­al (Mid­dle East­ern) Stud­ies and an MSc in In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions & Diplo­ma­cy from the Lon­don School of Eco­nom­ics.